1. It is through the Blessed Virgin Mary
that Jesus Christ came into the world, and it is also through her that he must
reign in the world.

2. Because Mary remained hidden during her
life, she is called by the Holy Spirit and the Church, Alma Mater, Mother hidden
and unknown. So great was her humility that she desired nothing more upon earth
than to remain unknown to herself and to others, and to be known only to
God.

3. In answer to her prayers to remain
hidden, poor and lowly, God was pleased to conceal her from nearly every other
human creature in her conception, her birth, her life, her mysteries, her
resurrection and assumption. Her own parents did not really know her; and the
angels would often ask one another, "Who can she possibly be?" (Song 8:5) for
God had hidden her from them, or if he did reveal anything to them, it was
nothing compared with what he withheld.

4. God the Father willed that she should
perform no miracle during her life, at least no public one, although he had
given her the power to do so. God the Son willed that she should speak very
little although he had imparted his wisdom to her.

Even though Mary was his faithful spouse,
God the Holy Spirit willed that his apostles and evangelists should say very
little about her and then only as much as was necessary to make Jesus
known.

5. Mary is the supreme masterpiece of
Almighty God and he has reserved the knowledge and possession of her for
himself. She is the glorious Mother of God the Son, who chose to humble and
conceal her during her lifetime in order to foster her humility. He called her
"Woman," as if she were a stranger, although in his heart he esteemed and loved
her above all men and angels. Mary is the sealed fountain and the faithful
spouse of the Holy Spirit where only he may enter. She is the sanctuary and
resting-place of the Blessed Trinity where God dwells in greater and more divine
splendour than anywhere else in the universe, not excluding his dwelling above
the cherubim and seraphim. No creature, however pure, may enter there without
being specially privileged.

6. I declare with the saints: Mary is the
earthly paradise of Jesus Christ the new Adam, where he became man by the power
of the Holy Spirit, in order to accomplish in her wonders beyond our
understanding. She is the vast and divine world of God where unutterable marvels
and beauties are to be found. She is the magnificence of the Almighty where he
hid his only Son, as in his own bosom, and with him everything that is most
excellent and precious. What great and hidden things the all-powerful God has
done for this wonderful creature, as she herself had to confess in spite of her
great humility, "The Almighty has done great things for me" (Lk. 1:49). The
world does not know these things because it is incapable and unworthy of knowing
them.

7. The saints have said wonderful things of
Mary, the holy City of God, and, as they themselves admit, they were never more
eloquent and more pleased than when they spoke of her. And yet they maintain
that the height of her merits rising up to the throne of the Godhead cannot be
perceived; the breadth of her love which is wider than the earth cannot be
measured; the greatness of the power which she wields over one who is God cannot
be conceived; and the depths of her profound humility and all her virtues and
graces cannot be sounded. What incomprehensible height! What indescribable
breadth! What immeasurable greatness! What an impenetrable
abyss!

8. Every day, from one end of the earth to
the other, in the highest heaven and in the lowest abyss, all things preach, all
things proclaim the wondrous Virgin Mary. The nine choirs of angels, men and
women of every age, rank and religion, both good and evil, even the very devils
themselves are compelled by the force of truth, willingly or unwillingly, to
call her blessed.

According to St. Bonaventure, all the angels
in heaven unceasingly call out to her: "Holy, holy, holy Mary, Virgin Mother of
God." They greet her countless times each day with the angelic greeting, "Hail,
Mary," while prostrating themselves before her, begging her as a favour to
honour them with one of her requests. According to St. Augustine, even St.
Michael, though prince of all the heavenly court, is the most eager of all the
angels to honour her and lead others to honour her. At all times he awaits the
privilege of going at her word to the aid of one of her
servants.

9. The whole world is filled with her glory,
and this is especially true of Christian peoples, who have chosen her as
guardian and protectress of kingdoms, provinces, dioceses, and towns. Many
cathedrals are consecrated to God in her name. There is no church without an
altar dedicated to her, no country or region without at least one of her
miraculous images where all kinds of afflictions are cured and all sorts of
benefits received. Many are the confraternities and associations honouring her
as patron; many are the orders under her name and protection; many are the
members of sodalities and religious of all congregations who voice her praises
and make known her compassion. There is not a child who does not praise her by
lisping a Hail, Mary. There is scarcely a sinner, however hardened, who does not
possess some spark of confidence in her. The very devils in hell, while fearing
her, show her respect.

10. And yet in truth we must still say with
the saints: "De Maria numquam satis": We have still not praised, exalted,
honoured, loved and served Mary adequately. She is worthy of even more praise,
respect, love and service.

11. Moreover, we should repeat after the
Holy Spirit, "All the glory of the king's daughter is within" (Ps. 44:14),
meaning that all the external glory which heaven and earth vie with each other
to give her is nothing compared to what she has received interiorly from her
Creator, namely, a glory unknown to insignificant creatures like us, who cannot
penetrate into the secrets of the king.

12. Finally, we must say in the words of the
apostle Paul, "Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, nor has the heart of man
understood" (1 Cor. 2:9) the beauty, the grandeur, the excellence of Mary, who
is indeed a miracle of miracles of grace, nature and glory. "If you wish to
understand the Mother," says a saint, "then understand the Son. She is a worthy
Mother of God." Hic taceat omnis lingua: Here let every tongue be
silent.

13. My heart has dictated with special joy
all that I have written to show that Mary has been unknown up till now, and that
that is one of the reasons why Jesus Christ is not known as he should be. If
then, as is certain, the knowledge and the kingdom of Jesus Christ must come
into the world, it can only be as a necessary consequence of the knowledge and
reign of Mary. She who first gave him to the world will establish his kingdom in
the world.

PART I. TRUE DEVOTION TO OUR
LADY IN GENERAL

Chapter 1. Necessity of
devotion to our Lady

1. Mary's part in the
Incarnation

14. With the whole Church I acknowledge that
Mary, being a mere creature fashioned by the hands of God is, compared to his
infinite majesty, less than an atom, or rather is simply nothing, since he alone
can say, "I am he who is" (Ex. 3:14). Consequently, this great Lord, who is ever
independent and self-sufficient, never had and does not now have any absolute
need of the Blessed Virgin for the accomplishment of his will and the
manifestation of his glory. To do all things he has only to will
them.

15. However, I declare that, considering
things as they are, because God has decided to begin and accomplish his greatest
works through the Blessed Virgin ever since he created her, we can safely
believe that he will not change his plan in the time to come, for he is God and
therefore does not change in his thoughts or his way of
acting.

16. God the Father gave his only Son to the
world only through Mary. Whatever desires the patriarchs may have cherished,
whatever entreaties the prophets and saints of the Old Law may have made for
4,000 years to obtain that treasure, it was Mary alone who merited it and found
grace before God by the power of her prayers and the perfection of her virtues.
"The world being unworthy," said Saint Augustine, "to receive the Son of God
directly from the hands of the Father, he gave his Son to Mary for the world to
receive him from her."

The Son of God became man for our salvation
but only in Mary and through Mary.

God the Holy Spirit formed Jesus Christ in
Mary but only after having asked her consent through one of the chief ministers
of his court.

17. God the Father imparted to Mary his
fruitfulness as far as a mere creature was capable of receiving it, to enable
her to bring forth his Son and all the members of his mystical
body.

18. God the Son came down into her virginal
womb as a new Adam into his earthly paradise, to take his delight there and
produce hidden wonders of grace.

God-made-man found freedom in imprisoning
himself in her womb. He displayed power in allowing himself to be borne by this
young maiden. He found his glory and that of his Father in hiding his splendours
from all creatures here below and revealing them only to Mary. He glorified his
independence and his majesty in depending upon this lovable virgin in his
conception, his birth, his presentation in the temple, and in the thirty years
of his hidden life. Even at his death she had to be present so that he might be
united with her in one sacrifice and be immolated with her consent to the
eternal Father, just as formerly Isaac was offered in sacrifice by Abraham when
he accepted the will of God. It was Mary who nursed him, fed him, cared for him,
reared him, and sacrificed him for us.

The Holy Spirit could not leave such
wonderful and inconceivable dependence of God unmentioned in the Gospel, though
he concealed almost all the wonderful things that Wisdom Incarnate did during
his hidden life in order to bring home to us its infinite value and glory. Jesus
gave more glory to God his Father by submitting to his Mother for thirty years
than he would have given him had he converted the whole world by working the
greatest miracles. How highly then do we glorify God when to please him we
submit ourselves to Mary, taking Jesus as our sole model!

19. If we examine closely the remainder of
the life of Jesus Christ, we see that he chose to begin his miracles through
Mary. It was by her word that he sanctified St. John the Baptist in the womb of
his mother, St. Elizabeth; no sooner had Mary spoken than John was sanctified.
This was his first and greatest miracle of grace. At the wedding in Cana he
changed water into wine at her humble prayer, and this was his first miracle in
the order of nature. He began and continued his miracles through Mary and he
will continue them through her until the end of time.

20. God the Holy Spirit, who does not
produce any divine person, became fruitful through Mary whom he espoused. It was
with her, in her and of her that he produced his masterpiece, God-made-man, and
that he produces every day until the end of the world the members of the body of
this adorable Head. For this reason the more he finds Mary his dear and
inseparable spouse in a soul the more powerful and effective he becomes in
producing Jesus Christ in that soul and that soul in Jesus
Christ.

21. This does not mean that the Blessed
Virgin confers on the Holy Spirit a fruitfulness which he does not already
possess. Being God, he has the ability to produce just like the Father and the
Son, although he does not use this power and so does not produce another divine
person. But it does mean that the Holy Spirit chose to make use of our Blessed
Lady, although he had no absolute need of her, in order to become actively
fruitful in producing Jesus Christ and his members in her and by her. This is a
mystery of grace unknown even to many of the most learned and spiritual of
Christians.

2. Mary's part in the
sanctification of souls

22. The plan adopted by the three persons of
the Blessed Trinity in the Incarnation, the first coming of Jesus Christ, is
adhered to each day in an invisible manner throughout the Church and they will
pursue it to the end of time until the last coming of Jesus
Christ.

23. God the Father gathered all the waters
together and called them the seas (maria). He gathered all his graces together
and called them Mary (Maria). The great God has a treasury or storehouse full of
riches in which he has enclosed all that is beautiful, resplendent, rare, and
precious, even his own Son. This immense treasury is none other than Mary whom
the saints call the "treasury of the Lord." From her fullness all men are made
rich.

24. God the Son imparted to his mother all
that he gained by his life and death, namely, his infinite merits and his
eminent virtues. He made her the treasurer of all his Father had given him as
heritage. Through her he applies his merits to his members and through her he
transmits his virtues and distributes his graces. She is his mystical channel,
his aqueduct, through which he causes his mercies to flow gently and
abundantly.

25. God the Holy Spirit entrusted his
wondrous gifts to Mary, his faithful spouse, and chose her as the dispenser of
all he possesses, so that she distributes all his gifts and graces to whom she
wills, as much as she wills, how she wills and when she wills. No heavenly gift
is given to men which does not pass through her virginal hands. Such indeed is
the will of God, who has decreed that we should have all things through Mary, so
that, making herself poor and lowly, and hiding herself in the depths of
nothingness during her whole life, she might be enriched, exalted and honoured
by almighty God. Such are the views of the Church and the early
Fathers.

26. Were I speaking to the so-called
intellectuals of today, I would prove at great length by quoting Latin texts
taken from Scripture and the Fathers of the Church all that I am now stating so
simply. I could also instance solid proofs which can be read in full in Fr.
Poir�'s book The Triple Crown of the Blessed Virgin. But I am speaking mainly
for the poor and simple who have more good will and faith than the common run of
scholars. As they believe more simply and more meritoriously, let me merely
state the truth to them quite plainly without bothering to quote Latin passages
which they would not understand. Nevertheless, I shall quote some texts as they
occur to my mind as I go along.

27. Since grace enhances our human nature
and glory adds a still greater perfection to grace, it is certain that our Lord
remains in heaven just as much the Son of Mary as he was on earth. Consequently
he has retained the submissiveness and obedience of the most perfect of all
children towards the best of all mothers.

We must take care, however, not to consider
this dependence as an abasement or imperfection in Jesus Christ. For Mary,
infinitely inferior to her Son, who is God, does not command him in the same way
as an earthly mother would command her child who is beneath her. Since she is
completely transformed in God by that grace and glory which transforms all the
saints in him, she does not ask or wish or do anything which is contrary to the
eternal and unchangeable will of God. When therefore we read in the writings of
St. Bernard, St. Bernardine, St. Bonaventure, and others that all in heaven and
on earth, even God himself, is subject to the Blessed Virgin, they mean that the
authority which God was pleased to give her is so great that she seems to have
the same power as God. Her prayers and requests are so powerful with him that he
accepts them as commands in the sense that he never resists his dear mother's
prayer because it is always humble and conformed to his
will.

Moses by the power of his prayer curbed
God's anger against the Israelites so effectively that the infinitely great and
merciful Lord was unable to withstand him and asked Moses to let him be angry
and punish that rebellious people. How much greater, then, will be the prayer of
the humble Virgin Mary, worthy Mother of God, which is more powerful with the
King of heaven than the prayers and intercession of all the angels and saints in
heaven and on earth.

28. Mary has authority over the angels and
the blessed in heaven. As a reward for her great humility, God gave her the
power and the mission of assigning to saints the thrones made vacant by the
apostate angels who fell away through pride.

Such is the will of almighty God who exalts
the humble, that the powers of heaven, earth and hell, willingly or unwillingly,
must obey the commands of the humble Virgin Mary. For God has made her queen of
heaven and earth, leader of his armies, keeper of his treasures, dispenser of
his graces, worker of his wonders, restorer of the human race, mediatrix on
behalf of men, destroyer of his enemies, and faithful associate in his great
works and triumphs.

29. God the Father wishes Mary to be the
mother of his children until the end of time and so he says to her, "Dwell in
Jacob" (Sir. 24:8), that is to say, take up your abode permanently in my
children, in my holy ones represented by Jacob, and not in the children of the
devil and sinners represented by Esau.

30. Just as in natural and bodily generation
there is a father and a mother, so in the supernatural and spiritual generation
there is a father who is God and a mother who is Mary. All true children of God
have God for their father and Mary for their mother; anyone who does not have
Mary for his mother does not have God for his father. This is why the reprobate,
such as heretics and schismatics, who hate, despise or ignore the Blessed
Virgin, do not have God for their father though they arrogantly claim they have,
because they do not have Mary for their mother. Indeed if they had her for their
mother they would love and honour her as good and true children naturally love
and honour the mother who gave them life.

An infallible and unmistakable sign by which
we can distinguish a heretic, a man of false doctrine, an enemy of God, from one
of God's true friends is that the heretic and the hardened sinner show nothing
but contempt and indifference for our Lady. He endeavours by word and example,
openly or insidiously - sometimes under specious pretexts - to belittle the love
and veneration shown to her. God the Father has not told Mary to dwell in them
because they are, alas, other Esaus.

31. God the Son wishes to form himself, and,
in a manner of speaking, become incarnate every day in his members through his
dear Mother. To her he said: "Take Israel for your inheritance" (Sir. 24:8). It
is as if he said, God the Father has given me as heritage all the nations of the
earth, all men good and evil, predestinate and reprobate. To the good I shall be
father and advocate, to the bad a just avenger, but to all I shall be a judge.
But you, my dear Mother, will have for your heritage and possession only the
predestinate represented by Israel. As their loving mother, you will give them
birth, feed them and rear them. As their queen, you will lead, govern and defend
them.

32. "This one and that one were born in her"
(Ps. 86:5). According to the explanation of some of the Fathers, the first man
born of Mary is the God-man, Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ, the head of mankind,
is born of her, the predestinate, who are members of this head, must also as a
necessary consequence be born of her.

One and the same mother does not give birth
to the head without the members nor to the members without the head, for these
would be monsters in the order of nature. In the order of grace likewise the
head and the members are born of the same mother. If a member of the mystical
body of Christ, that is, one of the predestinate, were born of a mother other
than Mary who gave birth to the head, he would not be one of the predestinate,
nor a member of Jesus Christ, but a monster in the order of
grace.

33. Moreover, Jesus is still as much as ever
the fruit of Mary, as heaven and earth repeat thousands of times a day: "Blessed
is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus." It is therefore certain that Jesus is the
fruit and gift of Mary for every single man who possesses him, just as truly as
he is for all mankind. Consequently, if any of the faithful have Jesus formed in
their heart they can boldly say, "It is thanks to Mary that what I possess is
Jesus, her fruit, and without her I would not have him." We can attribute more
truly to her what St. Paul said of himself (Gal. 4:19), "I am in labour again
with all the children of God until Jesus Christ, my Son, is formed in them to
the fullness of his age." St. Augustine, surpassing himself as well as all that
I have said so far, affirms that in order to be conformed to the image of the
Son of God all the predestinate, while in the world, are hidden in the womb of
the Blessed Virgin where they are protected, nourished, cared for and developed
by this good Mother, until the day she brings them forth to a life of glory
after death, which the Church calls the birthday of the just. This is indeed a
mystery of grace unknown to the reprobate and little known even to the
predestinate!

34. God the Holy Spirit wishes to fashion
his chosen ones in and through Mary. He tells her, "My well-beloved, my spouse,
let all your virtues take root in my chosen ones (Sir. 24:12) that they may grow
from strength to strength and from grace to grace. When you were living on
earth, practising the most sublime virtues, I was so pleased with you that I
still desire to find you on earth without your ceasing to be in heaven.
Reproduce yourself then in my chosen ones, so that I may have the joy of seeing
in them the roots of your invincible faith, profound humility, total
mortification, sublime prayer, ardent charity, your firm hope and all your
virtues. You are always my spouse, as faithful, pure, and fruitful as ever. May
your faith give me believers; your purity, virgins; your fruitfulness, elect and
living temples."

35. When Mary has taken root in a soul she
produces in it wonders of grace which only she can produce; for she alone is the
fruitful virgin who never had and never will have her equal in purity and
fruitfulness. Together with the Holy Spirit Mary produced the greatest thing
that ever was or ever will be: a God-man. She will consequently produce the
marvels which will be seen in the latter times. The formation and the education
of the great saints who will come at the end of the world are reserved to her,
for only this singular and wondrous virgin can produce in union with the Holy
Spirit singular and wondrous things.

36. When the Holy Spirit, her spouse, finds
Mary in a soul, he hastens there and enters fully into it. He gives himself
generously to that soul according to the place it has given to his spouse. One
of the main reasons why the Holy Spirit does not work striking wonders in souls
is that he fails to find in them a sufficiently close union with his faithful
and inseparable spouse. I say "inseparable spouse," for from the moment the
substantial love of the Father and the Son espoused Mary to form Jesus, the head
of the elect, and Jesus in the elect, he has never disowned her, for she has
always been faithful and fruitful.

3.
Consequences

37. We must obviously conclude from what I
have just said: First, that Mary has received from God a far-reaching dominion
over the souls of the elect. Otherwise she could not make her dwelling place in
them as God the Father has ordered her to do, and she could not conceive them,
nourish them, and bring them forth to eternal life as their mother. She could
not have them for her inheritance and her possession and form them in Jesus and
Jesus in them. She could not implant in their heart the roots of her virtues,
nor be the inseparable associate of the Holy Spirit in all these works of grace.
None of these things, I repeat, could she do unless she had received from the
Almighty rights and authority over their souls.

For God, having given her power over his
only-begotten and natural Son, also gave her power over his adopted children -
not only in what concerns their body - which would be of little account - but
also in what concerns their soul.

38. Mary is the Queen of heaven and earth by
grace as Jesus is king by nature and by conquest. But as the kingdom of Jesus
Christ exists primarily in the heart or interior of man, according to the words
of the Gospel, "The kingdom of God is within you," so the kingdom of the Blessed
Virgin is principally in the interior of man, that is, in his soul. It is
principally in souls that she is glorified with her Son more than in any visible
creature. So we may call her, as the saints do, Queen of all
hearts.

39. Secondly, we must conclude that, being
necessary to God by a necessity which is called "hypothetical," (that is,
because God so willed it), the Blessed Virgin is all the more necessary for men
to attain their final end. Consequently, we must not place devotion to her on
the same level as devotion to the other saints as if it were merely something
optional.

40. The pious and learned Jesuit, Suarez,
Justus Lipsius, a devout and erudite theologian of Louvain, and many others have
proved incontestably that devotion to our Blessed Lady is necessary to attain
salvation. This they show from the teaching of the Fathers, notably St.
Augustine, St. Ephrem, deacon of Edessa, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Germanus of
Constantinople, St. John Demascene, St. Anselm, St. Bernard, St. Bernardine, St.
Thomas and St. Bonaventure. Even according to Oecolampadius and other heretics,
lack of esteem and love for the Virgin Mary is an infallible sign of God's
disapproval. On the other hand, to be entirely and genuinely devoted to her is a
sure sign of God's approval.

41. The types and texts of the Old and New
Testaments prove the truth of this, the opinions and examples of the saints
confirm it, and reason and experience teach and demonstrate it. Even the devil
and his followers, forced by the evidence of the truth, were frequently obliged
against their will to admit it. For brevity's sake, I shall quote one only of
the many passages which I have collected from the Fathers and Doctors of the
Church to support this truth. "Devotion to you, O Blessed Virgin, is a means of
salvation which God gives to those whom he wishes to save" (St. John
Damascene).

42. I could tell many stories
in evidence of what I have just said.

1. One is recorded in the chronicles of St.
Francis. The saint saw in ecstasy an immense ladder reaching to heaven, at the
top of which stood the Blessed Virgin. This is the ladder, he was told, by which
we must all go to heaven.

2. There is another related in the
Chronicles of St. Dominic. Near Carcassonne, where St. Dominic was preaching the
Rosary, there was an unfortunate heretic who was possessed by a multitude of
devils. These evil spirits to their confusion were compelled at the command of
our Lady to confess many great and consoling truths concerning devotion to her.
They did this so clearly and forcibly that, however weak our devotion to our
Lady may be, we cannot read this authentic story containing such an unwilling
tribute paid by the devils to devotion to our Lady without shedding tears of
joy.

43. If devotion to the Blessed Virgin is necessary for all
men simply to work out their salvation, it is even more necessary for those who
are called to a special perfection. I do not believe that anyone can acquire
intimate union with our Lord and perfect fidelity to the Holy Spirit without a
very close union with the most Blessed Virgin and an absolute dependence on her
support.

44. Mary alone found grace before God without the help of
any other creature. All those who have since found grace before God have found
it only through her. She was full of grace when she was greeted by the Archangel
Gabriel and was filled with grace to overflowing by the Holy Spirit when he so
mysteriously overshadowed her. From day to day, from moment to moment, she
increased so much this twofold plenitude that she attained an immense and
inconceivable degree of grace. So much so, that the Almighty made her the sole
custodian of his treasures and the sole dispenser of his graces. She can now
ennoble, exalt and enrich all she chooses. She can lead them along the narrow
path to heaven and guide them through the narrow gate to life. She can give a
royal throne, sceptre and crown to whom she wishes. Jesus is always and
everywhere the fruit and Son of Mary and Mary is everywhere the genuine tree
that bears that Fruit of life, the true Mother who bears that
Son.

45. To Mary alone God gave the keys of the cellars of divine
love and the ability to enter the most sublime and secret ways of perfection,
and lead others along them. Mary alone gives to the unfortunate children of
unfaithful Eve entry into that earthly paradise where they may walk pleasantly
with God and be safely hidden from their enemies. There they can feed without
fear of death on the delicious fruit of the tree of life and the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. They can drink copiously the heavenly waters of that
beauteous fountain which gushes forth in such abundance. As she is herself the
earthly paradise, the virgin and blessed land from which sinful Adam and Eve
were expelled, she lets only those whom she chooses enter her domain in order to
make them saints.

46. All the rich among the people, to use an expression of
the Holy Spirit as explained by St. Bernard, all the rich among the people will
look pleadingly upon your countenance throughout all ages and particularly as
the world draws to its end. This means that the greatest saints, those richest
in grace and virtue, will be the most assiduous in praying to the most Blessed
Virgin, looking up to her as the perfect model to imitate and as a powerful
helper to assist them.

47. I said that this will happen especially towards the end
of the world, and indeed soon, because Almighty God and his holy Mother are to
raise up great saints who will surpass in holiness most other saints as much as
the cedars of Lebanon tower above little shrubs. This has been revealed to a
holy soul whose life has been written by M. de Renty.

48. These great souls filled with grace and zeal will be
chosen to oppose the enemies of God who are raging on all sides. They will be
exceptionally devoted to the Blessed Virgin. Illumined by her light,
strengthened by her food, guided by her spirit, supported by her arm, sheltered
under her protection, they will fight with one hand and build with the other.
With one hand they will give battle, overthrowing and crushing heretics and
their heresies, schismatics and their schisms, idolaters and their idolatries,
sinners and their wickedness. With the other hand they will build the temple of
the true Solomon and the mystical city of God, namely, the Blessed Virgin, who
is called by the Fathers of the Church the Temple of Solomon and the City of
God. By word and example they will draw all men to a true devotion to her and
though this will make many enemies, it will also bring about many victories and
much glory to God alone. This is what God revealed to St. Vincent Ferrer, that
outstanding apostle of his day, as he has amply shown in one of his
works.

This seems to have been foretold by the Holy Spirit in Psalm
58: "The Lord will reign in Jacob and all the ends of the earth. They will be
converted towards evening and they will be as hungry as dogs and they will go
around the city to find something to eat" (Ps. 58:13-14). This city around which
men will roam at the end of the world seeking conversion and the appeasement of
the hunger they have for justice is the most Blessed Virgin, who is called by
the Holy Spirit the City of God.

4. Mary's part in the latter
times

49. The salvation of the world began through Mary and
through her it must be accomplished. Mary scarcely appeared in the first coming
of Jesus Christ so that men, as yet insufficiently instructed and enlightened
concerning the person of her Son, might not wander from the truth by becoming
too strongly attached to her. This would apparently have happened if she had
been known, on account of the wondrous charms with which the Almighty had
endowed even her outward appearance. So true is this that St. Denis the
Areopagite tells us in his writings that when he saw her he would have taken her
for a goddess, because of her incomparable beauty, had not his well-grounded
faith taught him otherwise. But in the second coming of Jesus Christ, Mary must
be known and openly revealed by the Holy Spirit so that Jesus may be known,
loved and served through her. The reasons which moved the Holy Spirit to hide
his spouse during her life and to reveal but very little of her since the first
preaching of the Gospel exist no longer.

1. God wishes to make Mary
better known in the latter times

50. God wishes therefore to
reveal Mary, his masterpiece, and make her more known in these latter
times:

1. Because she kept herself hidden in this world and in her
great humility considered herself lower than dust, having obtained from God, his
apostles and evangelists the favour of being made known.

2. Because, as Mary is not only God's masterpiece of glory
in heaven, but also his masterpiece of grace on earth, he wishes to be glorified
and praised because of her by those living upon earth.

3. Since she is the dawn which precedes and discloses the
Sun of Justice, Jesus Christ, she must be known and acknowledged so that Jesus
may be known and acknowledged.

4. As she was the way by which Jesus first came to us, she
will again be the way by which he will come to us the second time though not in
the same manner.

5. Since she is the sure means, the direct and immaculate
way to Jesus and the perfect guide to him, it is through her that souls who are
to shine forth in sanctity, must find him. He who finds Mary finds life, that
is, Jesus Christ who is the way, the truth and the life. But no one can find
Mary who does not look for her. No one can look for her who does not know her,
for no one seeks or desires something unknown. Mary then must be better known
than ever for the deeper understanding and the greater glory of the Blessed
Trinity.

6. In these latter times Mary must shine forth more than
ever in mercy, power and grace: in mercy, to bring back and welcome lovingly the
poor sinners and wanderers who are to be converted and return to the Catholic
Church; in power, to combat the enemies of God who will rise up menacingly to
seduce and crush by promises and threats all those who oppose them; finally, she
must shine forth in grace to inspire and support the valiant soldiers and loyal
servants of Jesus Christ who are fighting for his cause.

7. Lastly, Mary must become as terrible as an army in battle
array to the devil and his followers, especially in these latter times. For
Satan, knowing that he has little time - even less now than ever - to destroy
souls, intensifies his efforts and his onslaughts every day. He will not
hesitate to stir up savage persecutions and set treacherous snares for Mary's
faithful servants and children whom he finds more difficult to overcome than
others.

51. It is chiefly in reference to these last wicked
persecutions of the devil, daily increasing until the advent of the reign of
anti-Christ, that we should understand that first and well-known prophecy and
curse of God uttered against the serpent in the garden of paradise. It is
opportune to explain it here for the glory of the Blessed Virgin, the salvation
of her children and the confusion of the devil. "I will place enmities between
you and the woman, between your race and her race; she will crush your head and
you will lie in wait for her heel" (Gen. 3:15).

52. God has established only one enmity - but it is an
irreconcilable one which will last and even go on increasing to the end of time.
That enmity is between Mary, his worthy Mother, and the devil, between the
children and the servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and followers
of Lucifer.

Thus the most fearful enemy that God has set up against the
devil is Mary, his holy Mother. From the time of the earthly paradise, although
she existed then only in his mind, he gave her such a hatred for his accursed
enemy, such ingenuity in exposing the wickedness of the ancient serpent and such
power to defeat, overthrow and crush this proud rebel, that Satan fears her not
only more than angels and men but in a certain sense more than God himself. This
does not mean that the anger, hatred and power of God are not infinitely greater
than the Blessed Virgin's, since her attributes are limited. It simply means
that Satan, being so proud, suffers infinitely more in being vanquished and
punished by a lowly and humble servant of God, for her humility humiliates him
more than the power of God. Moreover, God has given Mary such great power over
the evil spirits that, as they have often been forced unwillingly to admit
through the lips of possessed persons, they fear one of her pleadings for a soul
more than the prayers of all the saints, and one of her threats more than all
their other torments.

53. What Lucifer lost by pride Mary won by humility. What
Eve ruined and lost by disobedience Mary saved by obedience. By obeying the
serpent, Eve ruined her children as well as herself and delivered them up to
him. Mary by her perfect fidelity to God saved her children with herself and
consecrated them to his divine majesty.

54. God has established not just one enmity but "enmities,"
and not only between Mary and Satan but between her race and his race. That is,
God has put enmities, antipathies and hatreds between the true children and
servants of the Blessed Virgin and the children and slaves of the devil. They
have no love and no sympathy for each other. The children of Belial, the slaves
of Satan, the friends of the world - for they are all one and the same - have
always persecuted and will persecute more than ever in the future those who
belong to the Blessed Virgin, just as Cain of old persecuted his brother Abel,
and Esau his brother Jacob. These are the types of the wicked and of the just.
But the humble Mary will always triumph over Satan, the proud one, and so great
will be her victory that she will crush his head, the very seat of his pride.
She will always unmask his serpent's cunning and expose his wicked plots. She
will scatter to the winds his devilish plans and to the end of time will keep
her faithful servants safe from his cruel claws.

But Mary's power over the evil spirits will especially shine
forth in the latter times, when Satan will lie in wait for her heel, that is,
for her humble servants and her poor children whom she will rouse to fight
against him. In the eyes of the world they will be little and poor and, like the
heel, lowly in the eyes of all, down-trodden and crushed as is the heel by the
other parts of the body. But in compensation for this they will be rich in God's
graces, which will be abundantly bestowed on them by Mary. They will be great
and exalted before God in holiness. They will be superior to all creatures by
their great zeal and so strongly will they be supported by divine assistance
that, in union with Mary, they will crush the head of Satan with their heel,
that is, their humility, and bring victory to Jesus Christ.

2. Devotion to Mary is
especially necessary in the latter times.

Finally, God in these times wishes
his Blessed Mother to be more known, loved and honoured than she has ever been.
This will certainly come about if the elect, by the grace and light of the Holy
Spirit, adopt the interior and perfect practice of the devotion which I shall
later unfold. Then they will clearly see that beautiful Star of the Sea, as much
as faith allows. Under her guidance they will come safely to port in spite of
storms and pirates. They will perceive the splendours of this Queen and will
consecrate themselves entirely to her service as subjects and slaves of love.
They will experience her motherly kindness and affection for her children. They
will love her tenderly and will appreciate how full of compassion she is and how
much they stand in need of her help. In all circumstances they will have
recourse to her as their advocate and mediatrix with Jesus Christ. They will see
clearly that she is the safest, easiest, shortest and most perfect way of
approaching Jesus and will surrender themselves to her, body and soul, without
reserve in order to belong entirely to Jesus.

56. But what will they be like,
these servants, these slaves, these children of Mary?

They will be ministers of the Lord who, like a flaming fire,
will enkindle everywhere the fires of divine love. They will become, in Mary's
powerful hands, like sharp arrows, with which she will transfix her
enemies.

They will be as the children of Levi, thoroughly purified by
the fire of great tribulations and closely joined to God. They will carry the
gold of love in their heart, the frankincense of prayer in their mind and the
myrrh of mortification in their body. They will bring to the poor and lowly
everywhere the sweet fragrance of Jesus, but they will bring the odour of death
to the great, the rich and the proud of this world.

57. They will be like thunder-clouds flying through the air
at the slightest breath of the Holy Spirit. Attached to nothing, surprised at
nothing, troubled at nothing, they will shower down the rain of God's word and
of eternal life. They will thunder against sin, they will storm against the
world, they will strike down the devil and his followers and for life and for
death, they will pierce through and through with the two-edged sword of God's
word all those against whom they are sent by Almighty God.

58. They will be true apostles of the latter times to whom
the Lord of Hosts will give eloquence and strength to work wonders and carry off
glorious spoils from his enemies. They will sleep without gold or silver and,
more important still, without concern in the midst of other priests,
ecclesiastics and clerics. Yet they will have the silver wings of the dove
enabling them to go wherever the Holy Spirit calls them, filled as they are,
with the resolve to seek the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Wherever
they preach, they will leave behind them nothing but the gold of love, which is
the fulfilment of the whole law.

59. Lastly, we know they will be true disciples of Jesus
Christ, imitating his poverty, his humility, his contempt of the world and his
love. They will point out the narrow way to God in pure truth according to the
holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world. Their hearts will not
be troubled, nor will they show favour to anyone; they will not spare or heed or
fear any man, however powerful he may be. They will have the two-edged sword of
the word of God in their mouths and the blood-stained standard of the Cross on
their shoulders. They will carry the crucifix in their right hand and the rosary
in their left, and the holy names of Jesus and Mary on their heart. The
simplicity and self-sacrifice of Jesus will be reflected in their whole
behaviour.

Such are the great men who are to come. By the will of God
Mary is to prepare them to extend his rule over the impious and unbelievers. But
when and how will this come about? Only God knows. For our part we must yearn
and wait for it in silence and in prayer: "I have waited and waited" (Ps.
39:2).

Chapter 2. In what devotion to
Mary consists

1. Basic principles of devotion
to Mary

60. Having spoken briefly of the necessity of devotion to
the Blessed Virgin, I must now explain what this devotion consists in. This I
will do with God's help after I have laid down certain basic truths which throw
light on the remarkable and sound devotion which I propose to
unfold.

First truth: Christ must be the
ultimate end of all devotions.

61. Jesus, our Saviour, true God and true man must be the
ultimate end of all our other devotions; otherwise they would be false and
misleading. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and end of everything.
"We labour," says St. Paul, "only to make all men perfect in Jesus
Christ."

For in him alone dwells the entire fullness of the divinity
and the complete fullness of grace, virtue and perfection. In him alone we have
been blessed with every spiritual blessing; he is the only teacher from whom we
must learn; the only Lord on whom we should depend; the only Head to whom we
should be united and the only model that we should imitate. He is the only
Physician that can heal us; the only Shepherd that can feed us; the only Way
that can lead us; the only Truth that we can believe; the only Life that can
animate us. He alone is everything to us and he alone can satisfy all our
desires.

We are given no other name under heaven by which we can be
saved. God has laid no other foundation for our salvation, perfection and glory
than Jesus. Every edifice which is not built on that firm rock, is founded upon
shifting sands and will certainly fall sooner or later. Every one of the
faithful who is not united to him is like a branch broken from the stem of the
vine. It falls and withers and is fit only to be burnt. If we live in Jesus and
Jesus lives in us, we need not fear damnation. Neither angels in heaven nor men
on earth, nor devils in hell, no creature whatever can harm us, for no creature
can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Through him, with
him and in him, we can do all things and render all honour and glory to the
Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit; we can make ourselves perfect and be for
our neighbour a fragrance of eternal life.

62. If then we are establishing sound devotion to our
Blessed Lady, it is only in order to establish devotion to our Lord more
perfectly, by providing a smooth but certain way of reaching Jesus Christ. If
devotion to our Lady distracted us from our Lord, we would have to reject it as
an illusion of the devil. But this is far from being the case. As I have already
shown and will show again later on, this devotion is necessary, simply and
solely because it is a way of reaching Jesus perfectly, loving him tenderly, and
serving him faithfully.

63. Here I turn to you for a moment, dear Jesus, to complain
lovingly to your divine Majesty that the majority of Christians, and even some
of the most learned among them, do not recognize the necessary bond that unites
you and your Blessed Mother. Lord, you are always with Mary and Mary is always
with you. She can never be without you because then she would cease to be what
she is. She is so completely transformed into you by grace that she no longer
lives, she no longer exists, because you alone, dear Jesus, live and reign in
her more perfectly than in all the angels and saints. If we only knew the glory
and the love given to you by this wonderful creature, our feelings for you and
for her would be far different from those we have now. So intimately is she
united to you that it would be easier to separate light from the sun, and heat
from the fire. I go further, it would even be easier to separate all the angels
and saints from you than Mary; for she loves you ardently, and glorifies you
more perfectly than all your other creatures put together.

64. In view of this, my dear Master, is it not astonishing
and pitiful to see the ignorance and shortsightedness of men with regard to your
holy Mother? I am not speaking so much of idolaters and pagans who do not know
you and consequently have no knowledge of her. I am not even speaking of
heretics and schismatics who have left you and your holy Church and therefore
are not interested in your holy Mother. I am speaking of Catholics, and even of
educated Catholics, who profess to teach the faith to others but do not know you
or your Mother except speculatively, in a dry, cold and sterile
way.

These people seldom speak of your Mother or devotion to her.
They say they are afraid that devotion to her will be abused and that you will
be offended by excessive honour paid to her. They protest loudly when they see
or hear a devout servant of Mary speak frequently with feeling, conviction and
vigour of devotion to her. When he speaks of devotion to her as a sure means of
finding and loving you without fear of illusion, or when he says this devotion
is a short road free from danger, or an immaculate way free from imperfection,
or a wondrous secret of finding you, they put before him a thousand specious
reasons to show him how wrong he is to speak so much of Mary. There are, they
say, great abuses in this devotion which we should try to stamp out and we
should refer people to you rather than exhort them to have devotion to your
Mother, whom they already love adequately.

If they are sometimes heard speaking of devotion to your
Mother, it is not for the purpose of promoting it or convincing people of it but
only to destroy the abuses made of it. Yet all the while these persons are
devoid of piety or genuine devotion to you, for they have no devotion to Mary.
They consider the Rosary and the Scapular as devotions suitable only for simple
women or ignorant people. After all, they say, we do not need them to be saved.
If they come across one who loves our Lady, who says the Rosary or shows any
devotion towards her, they soon move him to a change of mind and heart. They
advise him to say the Seven Penitential Psalms instead of the Rosary, and to
show devotion to Jesus instead of to Mary.

Dear Jesus, do these people possess your spirit? Do they
please you by acting in this way? Would it please you if we were to make no
effort to give pleasure to your Mother because we are afraid of offending you?
Does devotion to your holy Mother hinder devotion to you? Does Mary keep for
herself any honour we pay her? Is she a rival of yours? Is she a stranger having
no kinship with you? Does pleasing her imply displeasing you? Does the gift of
oneself to her constitute a deprivation for you? Is love for her a lessening of
our love for you?

65. Nevertheless, my dear Master, the majority of learned
scholars could not be further from devotion to your Mother, or show more
indifference to it even if all I have just said were true. Keep me from their
way of thinking and acting and let me share your feelings of gratitude, esteem,
respect and love for your holy Mother. I can then love and glorify you all the
more, because I will be imitating and following you more
closely.

66. As though I had said nothing so far to further her
honour, grant me now the grace to praise her more worthily, in spite of all her
enemies who are also yours. I can then say to them boldly with the saints, "Let
no one presume to expect mercy from God, who offends his holy
Mother."

67. So that I may obtain from your mercy a genuine devotion
to your blessed Mother and spread it throughout the whole world, help me to love
you wholeheartedly, and for this intention accept the earnest prayer I offer
with St. Augustine and all who truly love you.

My loving Lord, Jesus Christ, why have I ever loved or
desired anything else in my life but you, my God? Where was I when I was not in
communion with you? From now on, I direct all my desires to be inspired by you
and centred on you. I direct them to press forward for they have tarried long
enough, to hasten towards their goal, to seek the one they yearn
for.

O Jesus, let him who does not love you be accursed, and
filled with bitterness. O gentle Jesus, let every worthy feeling of mine show
you love, take delight in you and admire you. O God of my heart and my
inheritance, Christ Jesus, may my heart mellow before the influence of your
spirit and may you live in me. May the flame of your love burn in my soul. May
it burn incessantly on the altar of my heart. May it glow in my innermost being.
May it spread its heat into the hidden recesses of my soul and on the day of my
consummation may I appear before you consumed in your love.
Amen.

Second truth: We belong to Jesus
and Mary as their slaves.

68. From what Jesus Christ is in regard to us we must
conclude, as St. Paul says, that we belong not to ourselves but entirely to him
as his members and his slaves, for he bought us at an infinite price - the
shedding of his Precious Blood. Before baptism, we belonged to the devil as
slaves, but baptism made us in very truth slaves of Jesus. We must therefore
live, work and die for the sole purpose of bringing forth fruit for him,
glorifying him in our body and letting him reign in our soul. We are his
conquest, the people he has won, his heritage.

It is for this reason that the Holy Spirit compares us: 1)
to trees which are planted along the waters of grace in the field of the Church
and which must bear their fruit when the time comes; 2) to branches of the vine
of which Jesus is the stem, which must yield good grapes; 3) to a flock of sheep
of which Jesus is the Shepherd, which must increase and give milk; 4) to good
soil cultivated by God, where the seed will spread and produce crops up to
thirty-fold, sixty-fold, or a hundred-fold. Our Lord cursed the barren fig-tree
and condemned the slothful servant who wasted his talent.

All this proves that he wishes to receive some fruit from
our wretched selves, namely, our good works, which by right belong to him alone,
"created in Jesus Christ for good works" (Eph. 2:10). These words of the Holy
Spirit show that Jesus is the sole source and must be the sole end of all our
good works, and that we must serve him not just as paid servants but as slaves
of love. Let me explain what I mean.

69. There are two ways of belonging to another person and
being subject to his authority. One is by ordinary service and the other is by
slavery. And so we must use the terms "servant" and "slave." Ordinary service in
Christian countries is when a man is employed to serve another for a certain
length of time at a wage which is fixed or agreed upon. When a man is totally
dependent on another for life, and must serve his master without expecting any
wages or recompense, when he is treated just like a beast of the field over
which the owner has the right of life and death, then it is
slavery.

70. Now there are three kinds of slavery: natural slavery,
enforced slavery, and voluntary slavery. All creatures are slaves of God in the
first sense, for "the earth and its fullness belong to the Lord" (Ps. 23:1). The
devils and the damned are slaves in the second sense. The saints in heaven and
the just on earth are slaves in the third sense. Voluntary slavery is the most
perfect of all three states, for by it we give the greatest glory to God, who
looks into the heart and wants it to be given to him. Is he not indeed called
the God of the heart or of the loving will? For by this slavery we freely choose
God and his service before all things, even if we were not by our very nature
obliged to do so.

71. There is a world of difference between a servant and a
slave. 1) A servant does not give his employer all he is, all he has, and all he
can acquire by himself or through others. A slave, however, gives himself to his
master completely and exclusively with all he has and all he can acquire. 2) A
servant demands wages for the services rendered to his employer. A slave, on the
other hand, can expect nothing, no matter what skill, attention or energy he may
have put into his work. 3) A servant can leave his employer whenever he pleases,
or at least when the term of his service expires, whereas the slave has no such
right. 4) An employer has no right of life and death over a servant. Were he to
kill him as he would a beast of burden, he would commit murder. But the master
of a slave has by law the right of life and death over him, so that he can sell
him to anyone he chooses or - if you will pardon the comparison - kill him as he
would kill his horse. 5) Finally, a servant is in his employer's service only
for a time: a slave for always.

72. No other human state involves belonging more completely
to another than slavery. Among Christian peoples, nothing makes a person belong
more completely to Jesus and his holy Mother than voluntary slavery. Our Lord
himself gave us the example of this when out of love for us he "took the form of
a slave" (Phil. 2:7). Our Lady gave us the same example when she called herself
the handmaid or slave of the Lord. The Apostle considered it an honour to be
called "slave of Christ." Several times in Holy Scripture, Christians are
referred to as "slaves of Christ."

The Latin word "servus" at one time signified only a slave
because servants as we know them did not exist. Masters were served either by
slaves or by freedmen. The Catechism of the Council of Trent leaves no doubt
about our being slaves of Jesus Christ, using the unequivocal term "Mancipia
Christi," which plainly means: slaves of Christ.

73. Granting this, I say that we must belong to Jesus and
serve him not just as hired servants but as willing slaves who, moved by
generous love, commit themselves to his service after the manner of slaves for
the honour of belonging to him. Before we were baptized we were the slaves of
the devil, but baptism made us the slaves of Jesus. Christians can only be
slaves of the devil or slaves of Christ.

74. What I say in an absolute sense of our Lord, I say in a
relative sense of our Blessed Lady. Jesus, in choosing her as his inseparable
associate in his life, death, glory and power in heaven and on earth, has given
her by grace in his kingdom all the same rights and privileges that he possesses
by nature. "All that belongs to God by nature belongs to Mary by grace," say the
saints, and, according to them, just as Jesus and Mary have the same will and
the same power, they have also the same subjects, servants and
slaves.

75. Following therefore the teaching of the saints and of
many great men we can call ourselves, and become, the loving slaves of our
Blessed Lady in order to become more perfect slaves of Jesus. Mary is the means
our Lord chose to come to us and she is also the means we should choose to go to
him, for she is not like other creatures who tend rather to lead us away from
God than towards him, if we are over-attached to them. Mary's strongest
inclination is to unite us to Jesus, her Son, and her Son's strongest wish is
that we come to him through his Blessed Mother. He is pleased and honoured just
as a king would be pleased and honoured if a citizen, wanting to become a better
subject and slave of the king, made himself the slave of the queen. That is why
the Fathers of the Church, and St. Bonaventure after them, assert that the
Blessed Virgin is the way which leads to our Lord.

76. Moreover, if, as I have said, the Blessed Virgin is the
Queen and Sovereign of heaven and earth, does she not then have as many subjects
and slaves as there are creatures? "All things, including Mary herself, are
subject to the power of God. All things, God included, are subject to the
Virgin's power," so we are told by St. Anselm, St. Bernard, St. Bernardine and
St. Bonaventure. Is it not reasonable to find that among so many slaves there
should be some slaves of love, who freely choose Mary as their Queen? Should men
and demons have willing slaves, and Mary have none? A king makes it a point of
honour that the queen, his consort, should have her own slaves, over whom she
has right of life and death, for honour and power given to the queen is honour
and power given to the king. Could we possibly believe that Jesus, the best of
all sons, who shared his power with his Blessed Mother, would resent her having
her own slaves? Has he less esteem and love for his Mother than Ahasuerus had
for Esther, or Solomon for Bathsheba? Who could say or even think such a
thing?

77. But where is my pen leading me? Why am I wasting my time
proving something so obvious? If people are unwilling to call themselves slaves
of Mary, what does it matter? Let them become and call themselves slaves of
Jesus Christ, for this is the same as being slaves of Mary, since Jesus is the
fruit and glory of Mary. This is what we do perfectly in the devotion we shall
discuss later.

Third truth: We must rid
ourselves of what is evil in us

78. Our best actions are usually tainted and spoiled by the
evil that is rooted in us. When pure, clear water is poured into a foul-smelling
jug, or wine into an unwashed cask that previously contained another wine, the
clear water and the good wine are tainted and readily acquire an unpleasant
odour. In the same way when God pours into our soul, infected by original and
actual sin, the heavenly waters of his grace or the delicious wines of his love,
his gifts are usually spoiled and tainted by the evil sediment left in us by
sin. Our actions, even those of the highest virtue, show the effects of it. It
is therefore of the utmost importance that, in seeking the perfection that can
be attained only by union with Jesus, we rid ourselves of all that is evil in
us. Otherwise our infinitely pure Lord, who has an infinite hatred for the
slightest stain in our soul, will refuse to unite us to himself and will drive
us from his presence.

79. To rid ourselves of selfishness, we must first become
thoroughly aware, by the light of the Holy Spirit, of our tainted nature. Of
ourselves we are unable to do anything conducive to our salvation. Our human
weakness is evident in everything we do and we are habitually unreliable. We do
not deserve any grace from God. Our tendency to sin is always present. The sin
of Adam has almost entirely spoiled and soured us, filling us with pride and
corrupting every one of us, just as leaven sours, swells and corrupts the dough
in which it is placed. The actual sins we have committed, whether mortal or
venial, even though forgiven, have intensified our base desires, our weakness,
our inconstancy and our evil tendencies, and have left a sediment of evil in our
soul.

Our bodies are so corrupt that they are referred to by the
Holy Spirit as bodies of sin, as conceived and nourished in sin, and capable of
any kind of sin. They are subject to a thousand ills, deteriorating from day to
day and harbouring only disease, vermin and corruption.

Our soul, being united to our body, has become so carnal
that it has been called flesh. "All flesh had corrupted its way" (Gen. 6:12).
Pride and blindness of spirit, hardness of heart, weakness and inconstancy of
soul, evil inclinations, rebellious passions, ailments of the body - these are
all we can call our own. By nature we are prouder than peacocks, we cling to the
earth more than toads, we are baser than goats, more envious than serpents,
greedier than pigs, fiercer than tigers, lazier than tortoises, weaker than
reeds, and more changeable than weather-cocks. We have in us nothing but sin,
and deserve only the wrath of God and the eternity of hell.

80. Is it any wonder then that our Lord laid down that
anyone who aspires to be his follower must deny himself and hate his very life?
He makes it clear that anyone who loves his life shall lose it and anyone who
hates his life shall save it. Now, our Lord, who is infinite Wisdom, and does
not give commandments without a reason, bids us hate ourselves only because we
richly deserve to be hated. Nothing is more worthy of love than God and nothing
is more deserving of hatred than self.

81. Secondly, in order to empty ourselves of self, we must
die daily to ourselves. This involves our renouncing what the powers of the soul
and the senses of the body incline us to do. We must see as if we did not see,
hear as if we did not hear and use the things of this world as if we did not use
them. This is what St. Paul calls "dying daily" (1 Cor. 15:31). "Unless the
grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain"
(Jn. 12:24) and does not bear any good fruit. If we do not die to self and if
our holiest devotions do not lead us to this necessary and fruitful death, we
shall not bear fruit of any worth and our devotions will cease to be profitable.
All our good works will be tainted by self-love and self-will so that our
greatest sacrifices and our best actions will be unacceptable to God.
Consequently when we come to die we shall find ourselves devoid of virtue and
merit and discover that we do not possess even one spark of that pure love which
God shares only with those who have died to themselves and whose life is hidden
with Jesus Christ in him.

82. Thirdly, we must choose among all the devotions to the
Blessed Virgin the one which will lead us more surely to this dying to self.
This devotion will be the best and the most sanctifying for us. For we must not
believe that all that glitters is gold, all that is sweet is honey, or all that
is easy to do and is done by the majority of people is the most sanctifying.
Just as in nature there are secrets enabling us to do certain natural things
quickly, easily and at little cost, so in the spiritual life there are secrets
which enable us to perform supernatural works rapidly, smoothly and with
facility. Such works are, for example, emptying ourselves of self-love, filling
ourselves with God, and attaining perfection.

The devotion that I propose to explain is one of these
secrets of grace, for it is unknown to most Christians. Only a few devout people
know of it and it is practised and appreciated by fewer still. To begin the
explanation of this devotion here is a fourth truth which is a consequence of
the third.

Fourth truth: It is more humble
to have an intermediary with Christ

83. It is more perfect because it supposes greater humility
to approach God through a mediator rather than directly by ourselves. Our human
nature, as I have just shown, is so spoilt that if we rely on our own work,
effort and preparedness to reach God and please him, it is certain that our good
works will be tainted and carry little weight with him. They will not induce him
to unite himself to us or answer our prayers. God had his reasons for giving us
mediators with him. He saw our unworthiness and helplessness and had pity on us.
To give us access to his mercies he provided us with powerful advocates, so that
to neglect these mediators and to approach his infinite holiness directly and
without help from any one of them, is to be lacking in humility and respect
towards God who is so great and holy. It would mean that we have less esteem for
the King of kings than for an earthly king or ruler, for we would not dare
approach an earthly king without a friend to speak for us.

84. Our Lord is our Advocate and our Mediator of redemption
with God the Father. It is through him that we must pray with the whole Church,
triumphant and militant. It is through him that we have access to God the
Father. We should never appear before God, our Father, unless we are supported
by the merits of his Son, and, so to speak, clothed in them, as young Jacob was
clothed in the skin of the young goats when he appeared before his father Isaac
to receive his blessing.

85. But have we no need at all of a mediator with the
Mediator himself? Are we pure enough to be united directly to Christ without any
help? Is Jesus not God, equal in every way to the Father? Therefore is he not
the Holy of Holies, having a right to the same respect as his Father? If in his
infinite love he became our security and our Mediator with his Father, whom he
wished to appease in order to redeem us from our debts, should we on that
account show him less respect and have less regard for the majesty and holiness
of his person?

Let us not be afraid to say with St. Bernard that we need a
mediator with the Mediator himself and the divinely-honoured Mary is the one
most able to fulfil this office of love. Through her, Jesus came to us; through
her, we should go to him. If we are afraid of going directly to Jesus, who is
God, because of his infinite greatness, or our lowliness, or our sins, let us
implore without fear the help and intercession of Mary, our Mother. She is kind,
she is tender, and there is nothing harsh or forbidding about her, nothing too
sublime or too brilliant. When we see her, we see our own human nature at its
purest. She is not the sun, dazzling our weak sight by the brightness of its
rays. Rather, she is fair and gentle as the moon, which receives its light from
the sun and softens it and adapts it to our limited
perception.

She is so full of love that no one who asks for her
intercession is rejected, no matter how sinful he may be. The saints say that it
never has been known since the world began that anyone had recourse to our
Blessed Lady, with trust and perseverance, and was rejected. Her power is so
great that her prayers are never refused. She has but to appear in prayer before
her Son and he at once welcomes her and grants her requests. He is always
lovingly conquered by the prayers of the dear Mother who bore him and nourished
him.

86. All this is taken from St. Bernard and St. Bonaventure.
According to them, we have three steps to take in order to reach God. The first,
nearest to us and most suited to our capacity, is Mary; the second is Jesus
Christ; the third is God the Father. To go to Jesus, we should go to Mary, our
Mediatrix of intercession. To go to God the Father, we must go to Jesus, our
Mediator of redemption. This order is perfectly observed in the devotion I shall
speak about further on.

Fifth truth: It is difficult to
keep the graces received from God

87. It is very difficult, considering our weakness and
frailty, to keep the graces and treasures we have received from
God.

1. "We carry this treasure," which is worth more than heaven
and earth, "in fragile vessels" (2 Cor. 4:7), that is, in a corruptible body and
in a weak and wavering soul which requires very little to depress and disturb
it.

88. 2. The evil spirits, cunning thieves that they are, can
take us by surprise and rob us of all we possess. They are watching day and
night for the right moment. They roam incessantly seeking to devour us and to
snatch from us in one brief moment of sin all the grace and merit we have taken
years to acquire. Their malice and their experience, their cunning and their
numbers ought to make us ever fearful of such a misfortune happening to us.
People, richer in grace and virtue, more experienced and advanced in holiness
than we are, have been caught off their guard and robbed and stripped of
everything. How many cedars of Lebanon, how many stars of the firmament have we
sadly watched fall and lose in a short time their loftiness and their
brightness!

What has brought about this unexpected reverse? Not the lack
of grace, for this is denied no one. It was a lack of humility; they considered
themselves stronger and more self-sufficient than they really were. They thought
themselves well able to hold on to their treasures. They believed their house
secure enough and their coffers strong enough to safeguard their precious
treasure of grace. It was because of their unconscious reliance on self -
although it seemed to them that they were relying solely on the grace of God -
that the most just Lord left them to themselves and allowed them to be
despoiled. If they had only known of the wonderful devotion that I shall later
explain, they would have entrusted their treasure to Mary, the powerful and
faithful Virgin. She would have kept it for them as if it were her own
possession and even have considered that trust an obligation of
justice.

89. 3. It is difficult to persevere in holiness because of
the excessive corrupting influence of the world. The world is so corrupt that it
seems almost inevitable that religious hearts be soiled, if not by its mud, at
least by its dust. It is something of a miracle for anyone to stand firm in the
midst of this raging torrent and not be swept away; to weather this stormy sea
and not be drowned, or robbed by pirates; to breathe this pestilential air and
not be contaminated by it. It is Mary, the singularly faithful Virgin over whom
Satan had never any power, who works this miracle for those who truly love
her.

2. Marks of false and authentic
devotion to Mary

90. Now that we have established these five basic truths, it
is all the more necessary to make the right choice of the true devotion to our
Blessed Lady, for now more than ever there are false devotions to her which can
easily be mistaken for true ones. The devil, like a counterfeiter and crafty,
experienced deceiver, has already misled and ruined many Christians by means of
fraudulent devotions to our Lady. Day by day he uses his diabolical experience
to lead many more to their doom, fooling them, lulling them to sleep in sin and
assuring them that a few prayers, even badly said, and a few exterior practices
inspired by himself, are authentic devotions. A counterfeiter usually makes
coins only of gold and silver, rarely of other metals, because these latter
would not be worth the trouble. Similarly, the devil leaves other devotions
alone and counterfeits mostly those directed to Jesus and Mary, as for example,
devotion to the Holy Eucharist and to the Blessed Virgin, because these are to
other devotions what gold and silver are to other metals.

91. It is therefore very important, first, to recognize
false devotions to our Blessed Lady so as to avoid them, and to recognize true
devotion in order to practise it. Second, among so many different forms of true
devotion to our Blessed Lady we should choose the one most perfect and the most
pleasing to her, the one that gives greater glory to God and is most sanctifying
for us.

1. False devotion to our
Lady

92. There are, I find, seven kinds of false devotion to
Mary, namely, the devotion of 1) the critical, 2) the scrupulous, 3) the
superficial, 4) the presumptuous, 5) the inconstant, 6) the hypocritical, 7) the
self-interested.

Critical
devotees

93. Critical devotees are for the most part proud scholars,
people of independent and self-satisfied minds, who deep down in their hearts
have a vague sort of devotion to Mary. However, they criticize nearly all those
forms of devotion to her which simple and pious people use to honour their good
Mother just because such practices do not appeal to them. They question all
miracles and stories which testify to the mercy and power of the Blessed Virgin,
even those recorded by trustworthy authors or taken from the chronicles of
religious orders. They cannot bear to see simple and humble people on their
knees before an altar or statue of our Lady, or at prayer before some outdoor
shrine. They even accuse them of idolatry as if they were adoring the wood or
the stone. They say that as far as they are concerned they do not care for such
outward display of devotion and that they are not so gullible as to believe all
the fairy tales and stories told of our Blessed Lady. When you tell them how
admirably the Fathers of the Church praised our Lady, they reply that the
Fathers were exaggerating as orators do, or that their words are misrepresented.
These false devotees, these proud worldly people are greatly to be feared. They
do untold harm to devotion to our Lady. While pretending to correct abuses, they
succeed only too well in turning people away from this
devotion.

Scrupulous
devotees

94. Scrupulous devotees are those who imagine they are
slighting the Son by honouring the Mother. They fear that by exalting Mary they
are belittling Jesus. They cannot bear to see people giving to our Lady the
praises due to her and which the Fathers of the Church have lavished upon her.
It annoys them to see more people kneeling before Mary's altar than before the
Blessed Sacrament, as if these acts were at variance with each other, or as if
those who were praying to our Lady were not praying through her to Jesus. They
do not want us to speak too often of her or to pray so often to
her.

Here are some of the things they say: "What is the good of
all these Rosaries, confraternities and exterior devotions to our Lady? There is
a great deal of ignorance in all this. It is making a mockery of religion. Tell
us about those who are devoted to Jesus (and they often pronounce his name
without uncovering their heads). We should go directly to Jesus, since he is our
sole Mediator. We must preach Jesus; that is sound devotion." There is some
truth in what they say, but the inference they draw to prevent devotion to our
Lady is very insidious. It is a subtle snare of the evil one under the pretext
of promoting a greater good. For we never give more honour to Jesus than when we
honour his Mother, and we honour her simply and solely to honour him all the
more perfectly. We go to her only as a way leading to the goal we seek - Jesus,
her Son.

95. The Church, with the Holy Spirit, blesses our Lady
first, then Jesus, "Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy
womb, Jesus." Not that Mary is greater than Jesus, or even equal to him - that
would be an intolerable heresy. But in order to bless Jesus more perfectly we
should first bless Mary. Let us say with all those truly devoted to her, despite
these false and scrupulous devotees: "O Mary, blessed art thou among women and
blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus."

Superficial
devotees

96. Superficial devotees are people whose entire devotion to
our Lady consists in exterior practices. Only the externals of devotion appeal
to them because they have no interior spirit. They say many Rosaries with great
haste and assist at many Masses distractedly. They take part in processions of
our Lady without inner fervour. They join her confraternities without reforming
their lives or restraining their passions or imitating Mary's virtues. All that
appeals to them is the emotional aspect of this devotion, but the substance of
it has no appeal at all. If they do not feel a warmth in their devotions, they
think they are doing nothing; they become upset, and give up everything, or else
do things only when they feel like it. The world is full of these shallow
devotees, and there are none more critical of men of prayer who regard the
interior devotion as the essential aspect and strive to acquire it without,
however, neglecting a reasonable external expression which always accompanies
true devotion.

Presumptuous
devotees

97. Presumptuous devotees are sinners who give full reign to
their passions or their love of the world, and who, under the fair name of
Christian and servant of our Lady, conceal pride, avarice, lust, drunkenness,
anger, swearing, slandering, injustice and other vices. They sleep peacefully in
their wicked habits, without making any great effort to correct them, believing
that their devotion to our Lady gives them this sort of liberty. They convince
themselves that God will forgive them, that they will not die without
confession, that they will not be lost for all eternity. They take all this for
granted because they say the Rosary, fast on Saturdays, are enrolled in the
Confraternity of the Holy Rosary or the Scapular, or a sodality of our Lady,
wear the medal or the little chain of our Lady.

When you tell them that such a devotion is only an illusion
of the devil and a dangerous presumption which may well ruin them, they refuse
to believe you. God is good and merciful, they reply, and he has not made us to
damn us. No man is without sin. We will not die without confession, and a good
act of contrition at death is all that is needed. Moreover, they say they have
devotion to our Lady; that they wear the scapular; that they recite faithfully
and humbly every day the seven Our Fathers and seven Hail Marys in her honour;
that sometimes they even say the Rosary and the Office of our Lady, as well as
fasting and performing other good works.

Blinding themselves still more, they quote stories they have
heard or read - whether true or false does not bother them - which relate how
people who had died in mortal sin were brought back to life again to go to
confession, or how their soul was miraculously retained in their bodies until
confession, because in their lifetime they said a few prayers or performed a few
pious acts, in honour of our Lady. Others are supposed to have obtained from God
at the moment of death, through the merciful intercession of the Blessed Virgin,
sorrow and pardon for their sins, and so were saved. Accordingly, these people
expect the same thing to happen to them.

98. Nothing in our Christian religion is so deserving of
condemnation as this diabolical presumption. How can we truthfully claim to love
and honour the Blessed Virgin when by our sins we pitilessly wound, pierce,
crucify and outrage her Son? If Mary made it a rule to save by her mercy this
sort of person, she would be condoning wickedness and helping to outrage and
crucify her Son. Who would even dare to think of such a
thing?

99. I declare that such an abuse of devotion to her is a
horrible sacrilege and, next to an unworthy Communion, is the greatest and the
least pardonable sin, because devotion to our Lady is the holiest and best after
devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.

I admit that to be truly devoted to our Lady, it is not
absolutely necessary to be so holy as to avoid all sin, although this is
desirable. But at least it is necessary (note what I am going to say), 1) to be
genuinely determined to avoid at least all mortal sin, which outrages the Mother
as well as the Son; 2) to practise self-restraint in order to avoid sin; 3) to
join her confraternities, say the Rosary or other prayers, fast on Saturdays,
and so on.

100. Such means are surprisingly effective in converting
even the hardened sinner. Should you be such a sinner, with one foot in the
abyss, I advise you to do as I have said. But there is an essential condition.
You must perform these good works solely to obtain from God, through the
intercession of our Lady, the grace to regret your sins, obtain pardon for them
and overcome your evil habits, and not to live complacently in the state of sin,
disregarding the warning voice of conscience, the example of our Lord and the
saints, and the teaching of the holy Gospel.

Inconstant
devotees

101. Inconstant devotees are those whose devotion to our
Lady is practised in fits and starts. Sometimes they are fervent and sometimes
they are lukewarm. Sometimes they appear ready to do anything to please our
Lady, and then shortly afterwards they have completely changed. They start by
embracing every devotion to our Lady. They join her confraternities, but they do
not faithfully observe the rules. They are as changeable as the moon, and like
the moon Mary puts them under her feet. Because of their fickleness they are
unworthy to be included among the servants of the Virgin most faithful, because
faithfulness and constancy are the hallmarks of Mary's servants. It is better
not to burden ourselves with a multitude of prayers and pious practices but
rather adopt only a few and perform them with love and perseverance in spite of
opposition from the devil, the world, and the flesh.

Hypocritical
devotees

102. There is another category of false devotees of our Lady
- hypocritical ones. These hide their sins and evil habits under the mantle of
the Blessed Virgin so as to appear to their fellow-men different from what they
are.

Self-interested
devotees

103. Then there are the self-interested devotees who turn to
her only to win a court-case, to escape some danger, to be cured of some
ailment, or have some similar need satisfied. Except when in need they never
think of her. Such people are acceptable neither to God not to his
Mother.

104. We must, then, carefully avoid joining the critical
devotees, who believe nothing and find fault with everything; the scrupulous
ones who, out of respect for our Lord, are afraid of having too much devotion to
his Mother; the exterior devotees whose devotion consists entirely in outward
practices; the presumptuous devotees who under cover of a fictitious devotion to
our Lady wallow in their sins; the inconstant devotees who, being unstable,
change their devotional practices or abandon them altogether at the slightest
temptation; the hypocritical ones who join confraternities and wear emblems of
our Lady only to be thought of as good people; finally, the self-interested
devotees who pray to our Lady only to be rid of bodily ills or to obtain
material benefits.

2. Marks of authentic devotion
to our Lady

105. After having explained and condemned false devotions to
the Blessed Virgin we shall now briefly describe what true devotion is. It is
interior, trustful, holy, constant and disinterested.

106. First, true devotion to our Lady is interior, that is,
it comes from within the mind and the heart and follows from the esteem in which
we hold her, the high regard we have for her greatness, and the love we bear
her.

107. Second, it is trustful, that is to say, it fills us
with confidence in the Blessed Virgin, the confidence that a child has for its
loving Mother. It prompts us to go to her in every need of body and soul with
great simplicity, trust and affection. We implore our Mother's help always,
everywhere, and for everything. We pray to her to be enlightened in our doubts,
to be put back on the right path when we go astray, to be protected when we are
tempted, to be strengthened when we are weakening, to be lifted up when we fall
into sin, to be encouraged when we are losing heart, to be rid of our scruples,
to be consoled in the trials, crosses and disappointments of life. Finally, in
all our afflictions of body and soul, we naturally turn to Mary for help, with
never a fear of importuning her or displeasing our Lord.

109. Fourth, true devotion to our Lady is constant. It
strengthens us in our desire to do good and prevents us from giving up our
devotional practices too easily. It gives us the courage to oppose the fashions
and maxims of the world, the vexations and unruly inclinations of the flesh and
the temptations of the devil. Thus a person truly devoted to our Blessed Lady is
not changeable, fretful, scrupulous or timid. We do not say however that such a
person never sins or that his sensible feelings of devotion never change. When
he has fallen, he stretches out his hand to his Blessed Mother and rises again.
If he loses all taste and feeling for devotion, he is not at all upset because a
good and faithful servant of Mary is guided in his life by faith in Jesus and
Mary, and not by feelings.

110. Fifth, true devotion to Mary is disinterested. It
inspires us to seek God alone in his Blessed Mother and not ourselves. The true
subject of Mary does not serve his illustrious Queen for selfish gain. He does
not serve her for temporal or eternal well-being but simply and solely because
she has the right to be served and God alone in her. He loves her not so much
because she is good to him or because he expects something from her, but simply
because she is lovable. That is why he loves and serves her just as faithfully
in weariness and dryness of soul as in sweet and sensible fervour. He loves her
as much on Calvary as at Cana. How pleasing and precious in the sight of God and
his holy Mother must these servants of Mary be, who serve her without any
self-seeking. How rare they are nowadays! It is to increase their number that I
have taken up my pen to write down what I have been teaching with success both
publicly and in private in my missions for many years.

111. I have already said many things about the Blessed
Virgin and, as I am trying to fashion a true servant of Mary and a true disciple
of Jesus, I have still a great deal to say, although through ignorance,
inability, and lack of time, I shall leave infinitely more
unsaid.

112. But my labour will be well rewarded if this little book
falls into the hands of a noble soul, a child of God and of Mary, born not of
blood nor the will of the flesh nor of the will of man. My time will be well
spent if, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, after having read this book he is
convinced of the supreme value of the solid devotion to Mary I am about to
describe. If I thought that my guilty blood could help the reader to accept in
his heart the truths that I set down in honour of my dear Mother and Queen, I,
her most unworthy child and slave, would use it instead of ink to write these
words. I would hope to find faithful souls who, by their perseverance in the
devotion I teach, will repay her for the loss she has suffered through my
ingratitude and infidelity.

113. I feel more than ever inspired to believe and expect
the complete fulfilment of the desire that is deeply engraved on my heart and
what I have prayed to God for over many years, namely, that in the near or
distant future the Blessed Virgin will have more children, servants and slaves
of love than ever before, and that through them Jesus, my dear Lord, will reign
more than ever in the hearts of men.

114. I clearly foresee that raging beasts will come in fury
to tear to pieces with their diabolical teeth this little book and the one the
Holy Spirit made use of to write it, or they will cause it at least to lie
hidden in the darkness and silence of a chest and so prevent it from seeing the
light of day.

They will even attack and persecute those who read it and
put into practice what it contains. But no matter! So much the better! It even
gives me encouragement to hope for great success at the prospect of a mighty
legion of brave and valiant soldiers of Jesus and Mary, both men and women, who
will fight the devil, the world, and corrupt nature in the perilous times that
are sure to come.

"Let the reader understand. Let him accept this teaching who
can."

3. Principal practices of
devotion to Mary

115. There are several interior practices of true devotion
to the Blessed Virgin. Here briefly are the main ones:

1. Honouring her, as the worthy Mother of God, by the cult
of hyperdulia, that is, esteeming and honouring her more than all the other
saints as the masterpiece of grace and the foremost in holiness after Jesus
Christ, true God and true man.

2. Meditating on her virtues, her privileges and her
actions.

3. Contemplating her sublime dignity.

4. Offering to her acts of love, praise and
gratitude.

5. Invoking her with a joyful heart.

6. Offering ourselves to her and uniting ourselves to
her.

7. Doing everything to please her.

8. Beginning, carrying out and completing our actions
through her, in her, with her, and for her in order to do them through Jesus, in
Jesus, with Jesus, and for Jesus, our last end. We shall explain this last
practice later.

116. True devotion to our Lady
has also several exterior practices. Here are the principal
ones:

5. Carrying such signs of
devotion to her as the rosary, the scapular, or a little
chain.

6. Reciting with attention, devotion and reverence the
fifteen decades of the Rosary in honour of the fifteen principal mysteries of
our Lord, or at least five decades in honour of the Joyful mysteries - the
Annunciation, the Visitation, the Birth of our Lord, the Purification, the
Finding of the Child Jesus in the temple; or the Sorrowful mysteries: the Agony
in the Garden, the Scourging, the Crowning with thorns, the Carrying of the
Cross, and the Crucifixion; or the Glorious mysteries: The Resurrection of our
Lord, the Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Spirit, the Assumption of our Lady,
body and soul, into heaven, the Crowning of Mary by the Blessed
Trinity.

One may also choose any of the following prayers: the Rosary
of six or seven decades in honour of the years our Lady is believed to have
spent on earth; the Little Crown of the Blessed Virgin, composed of three Our
Fathers and twelve Hail Marys in honour of her crown of twelve stars or
privileges; the Little Office of our Lady so widely accepted and recited in the
Church; the Little Psalter of the Blessed Virgin, composed in her honour by St.
Bonaventure, which is so heartwarming, and so devotional that you cannot recite
it without being moved by it; the fourteen Our Fathers and Hail Marys in honour
of her fourteen joys. There are various other prayers and hymns of the Church,
such as, the hymns of the liturgical seasons, the Ave Maris Stella, the O
Gloriosa Domina; the Magnificat and other prayers which are found in all
prayer-books.

7. Singing hymns to her or
teaching others to sing them.

8. Genuflecting or bowing to her each morning while saying
for example sixty or a hundred times, "Hail Mary, Virgin most faithful," so that
through her intercession with God we may faithfully correspond with his graces
throughout the day; and in the evening saying "Hail Mary, Mother of Mercy,"
asking her to obtain God's pardon for the sins we have committed during the
day.

9. Taking charge of her confraternities, decorating her
altars, crowning and adorning her statues.

10. Carrying her statues or having others carry them in
procession, or keeping a small one on one's person as an effective protection
against the evil one.

11. Having statues made of her, or her name engraved and
placed on the walls of churches or houses and on the gates and entrances of
towns, churches and houses.

12. Solemnly giving oneself to
her by a special consecration.

117. The Holy Spirit has inspired saintly souls with other
practices of true devotion to the Blessed Virgin, all of which are conducive to
holiness. You can read of them in detail in Paradise opened to Philagia, a
collection of many devotions practised by holy people to honour the Blessed
Virgin, compiled by Fr. Paul Barry of the Society of Jesus. These devotions are
a wonderful help for souls seeking holiness provided they are performed in a
worthy manner, that is:

1. With the right intention of
pleasing God alone, seeking union with Jesus, our last end, and giving
edification to our neighbour.

2. With attention, avoiding
wilful distractions.

3. With devotion, avoiding haste
and negligence.

4. With decorum and respectful
bodily posture.

4. The perfect
practice

118. Having read nearly every book on devotion to the
Blessed Virgin and talked to the most saintly and learned people of the day, I
can now state with conviction that I have never known or heard of any devotion
to our Lady which is comparable to the one I am going to speak of. No other
devotion calls for more sacrifices for God, none empties us more completely of
self and self-love, none keeps us more firmly in the grace of God and the grace
of God in us. No other devotion unites us more perfectly and more easily to
Jesus. Finally no devotion gives more glory to God, is more sanctifying for
ourselves or more helpful to our neighbour.

119. As this devotion essentially consists in a state of
soul, it will not be understood in the same way by everyone. Some - the great
majority - will stop short at the threshold and go no further. Others - not many
- will take but one step into its interior. Who will take a second step? Who
will take a third? Finally who will remain in it permanently? Only the one to
whom the Spirit of Jesus reveals the secret. The Holy Spirit himself will lead
this faithful soul from strength to strength, from grace to grace, from light to
light, until at length he attains transformation into Jesus in the fullness of
his age on earth and of his glory in heaven.

PART II. THE PERFECT DEVOTION TO
OUR LADY

Chapter 3. The perfect consecration to Jesus
Christ

1. A complete consecration to Mary

120. As all perfection consists in our being conformed,
united and consecrated to Jesus it naturally follows that the most perfect of
all devotions is that which conforms, unites, and consecrates us most completely
to Jesus. Now of all God's creatures Mary is the most conformed to Jesus. It
therefore follows that, of all devotions, devotion to her makes for the most
effective consecration and conformity to him. The more one is consecrated to
Mary, the more one is consecrated to Jesus.

That is why perfect consecration to Jesus is but a perfect
and complete consecration of oneself to the Blessed Virgin, which is the
devotion I teach; or in other words, it is the perfect renewal of the vows and
promises of holy baptism.

121. This devotion consists in giving oneself entirely to
Mary in order to belong entirely to Jesus through her. It requires us to
give:

1. Our body with its senses and members;

2. Our soul with its faculties;

3. Our present material possessions and all we shall acquire
in the future;

4. Our interior and spiritual possessions, that is, our
merits, virtues and good actions of the past, the present and the
future.

In other words, we give her all that we possess both in our
natural life and in our spiritual life as well as everything we shall acquire in
the future in the order of nature, of grace, and of glory in heaven. This we do
without any reservation, not even of a penny, a hair, or the smallest good deed.
And we give for all eternity without claiming or expecting, in return for our
offering and our service, any other reward than the honour of belonging to our
Lord through Mary and in Mary, even though our Mother were not - as in fact she
always is - the most generous and appreciative of all God's
creatures.

122. Note here that two things must be considered regarding
our good works, namely, satisfaction and merit or, in other words, their
satisfactory or prayer value and their meritorious value. The satisfactory or
prayer value of a good work is the good action in so far as it makes condign
atonement for the punishment due to sin or obtains some new grace. The
meritorious value or merit is the good action in so far as it merits grace and
eternal glory. Now by this consecration of ourselves to the Blessed Virgin we
give her all satisfactory and prayer value as well as the meritorious value of
our good works, in other words, all the satisfactions and the merits. We give
her our merits, graces and virtues, not that she might give them to others, for
they are, strictly speaking, not transferable, because Jesus alone, in making
himself our surety with his Father, had the power to impart his merits to us.
But we give them to her that she may keep, increase and embellish them for us,
as we shall explain later, and we give her our acts of atonement that she may
apply them where she pleases for God's greater glory.

123. 1. It follows then that by this devotion we give to
Jesus all we can possibly give him, and in the most perfect manner, that is,
through Mary's hands. Indeed we give him far more than we do by other devotions
which require us to give only part of our time, some of our good works or acts
of atonement and penances. In this devotion everything is given and consecrated,
even the right to dispose freely of one's spiritual goods and the satisfactions
earned by daily good works. This is not done even in religious orders. Members
of religious orders give God their earthly goods by the vow of poverty, the
goods of the body by the vow of chastity, their free will by the vow of
obedience, and sometimes their freedom of movement by the vow of enclosure. But
they do not give him by these vows the liberty and right to dispose of the value
of their good works. They do not despoil themselves of what a Christian
considers most precious and most dear - his merits and
satisfactions.

124. 2. It follows then that anyone who in this way
consecrates and sacrifices himself voluntarily to Jesus through Mary may no
longer dispose of the value of any of his good actions. All his sufferings, all
his thoughts, words, and deeds belong to Mary. She can then dispose of them in
accordance with the will of her Son and for his greater glory. This dependence,
however, is without detriment to the duties of a person's present and future
state of life. One such duty, for example, would be that of a priest who, by
virtue of his office or otherwise, must apply the satisfactory or prayer value
of the Holy Mass to a particular person. For this consecration can only be made
in accordance with the order established by God and in keeping with the duties
of one's state of life.

125. 3. It follows that we consecrate ourselves at one and
the same time to Mary and to Jesus. We give ourselves to Mary because Jesus
chose her as the perfect means to unite himself to us and unite us to him. We
give ourselves to Jesus because he is our last end. Since he is our Redeemer and
our God we are indebted to him for all that we are.

2. A perfect renewal of
baptismal promises

126. I have said that this devotion could rightly be called
a perfect renewal of the vows and promises of holy baptism. Before baptism every
Christian was a slave of the devil because he belonged to him. At baptism he has
either personally or through his sponsors solemnly renounced Satan, his
seductions and his works. He has chosen Jesus as his Master and sovereign Lord
and undertaken to depend upon him as a slave of love. This is what is done in
the devotion I am presenting to you. We renounce the devil, the world, sin and
self, as expressed in the act of consecration, and we give ourselves entirely to
Jesus through Mary. We even do something more than at baptism, when ordinarily
our godparents speak for us and we are given to Jesus only by proxy. In this
devotion we give ourselves personally and freely and we are fully aware of what
we are doing.

In holy baptism we do not give ourselves to Jesus explicitly
through Mary, nor do we give him the value of our good actions. After baptism we
remain entirely free either to apply that value to anyone we wish or keep it for
ourselves. But by this consecration we give ourselves explicitly to Jesus
through Mary's hands and we include in our consecration the value of all our
actions.

127. "Men," says St. Thomas, "vow in baptism to renounce the
devil and all his seductions." "This vow," says St. Augustine, "is the greatest
and the most indispensable of all vows." Canon Law experts say the same thing:
"The vow we make at baptism is the most important of all vows." But does anyone
keep this great vow? Does anyone fulfil the promises of baptism faithfully? Is
it not true that nearly all Christians prove unfaithful to the promises made to
Jesus in baptism? Where does this universal failure come from, if not from man's
habitual forgetfulness of the promises and responsibilities of baptism and from
the fact that scarcely anyone makes a personal ratification of the contract made
with God through his sponsors?

128. This is so true that the Council of Sens, convened by
order of the Emperor Louis the Debonair to remedy the grave disorders of
Christendom, came to the conclusion that the main cause of this moral breakdown
was man's forgetfulness of his baptismal obligations and his disregard for them.
It could suggest no better way of remedying this great evil than to encourage
all Christians to renew the promises and vows of baptism.

129. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, faithful
interpreter of that holy Council, exhorts priests to do the same and to
encourage the faithful to remember and hold fast to the belief that they are
bound and consecrated as slaves to Jesus, their Redeemer and Lord. "The parish
priest shall exhort the faithful never to lose sight of the fact that they are
bound in conscience to dedicate and consecrate themselves forever to their Lord
and Redeemer as his slaves" (part I, c. 3).

130. Now the Councils, the Fathers of the Church and
experience itself, all indicate that the best remedy for the frequent lapses of
Christians is to remind them of the responsibilities of their baptism and have
them renew the vows they made at that time. Is it not reasonable therefore to do
this in our day and in a perfect manner by adopting this devotion with its
consecration to our Lord through his Blessed Mother? I say, "in a perfect
manner," for in making this consecration to Jesus they are adopting the perfect
means of giving themselves to him, which is the most Blessed Virgin
Mary.

131. No one can object that this devotion is novel or of no
value. It is not new, since the Councils, the Fathers of the Church, and many
authors both past and present, speak of consecration to our Lord or renewal of
baptismal vows as something going back to ancient times and recommended to all
the faithful. Nor is it valueless, since the chief source of moral disorders and
the consequent eternal loss of Christians spring from the forgetfulness of this
practice and indifference to it.

132. Some may object that this devotion makes us powerless
to help the souls of our relatives, friends and benefactors, since it requires
us to give our Lord, through Mary, the value of our good works, prayers,
penances, and alms-giving.

To them I
reply:

1. It is inconceivable that our friends, relatives and
benefactors should suffer any loss because we have dedicated and consecrated
ourselves unconditionally to the service of Jesus and Mary; it would be an
affront to the power and goodness of Jesus and Mary who will surely come to the
aid of our relatives, friends and benefactors whether from our meagre spiritual
assets or from other sources.

2. This devotion does not prevent us from praying for
others, both the living and the dead, even though the application of our good
works depends on the will of our Blessed Lady. On the contrary, it will make us
pray with even greater confidence. Imagine a rich man, who, wanting to show his
esteem for a great prince, gives his entire fortune to him. Would not that man
have greater confidence in asking the prince to help one of his friends who
needed assistance? Indeed the prince would only be too happy to have such an
opportunity of proving his gratitude to one who had sacrificed all that he
possessed to enrich him, thereby impoverishing himself to do him honour. The
same must be said of our Lord and our Lady. They will never allow themselves to
be outdone in gratitude.

133. Some may say, perhaps, if I give our Lady the full
value of my actions to apply it to whom she wills, I may have to suffer a long
time in purgatory. This objection, which arises from self-love and from an
unawareness of the generosity of God and his holy Mother, refutes
itself.

Take a fervent and generous soul who values God's interests
more than his own. He gives God all he has without reserve till he can give no
more. He desires only that the glory and the kingdom of Jesus may come through
his Mother, and he does all he can to bring this about. Will this generous and
unselfish soul, I ask, be punished more in the next world for having been more
generous and unselfish than other people? Far from it! For we shall see later
that our Lord and his Mother will prove most generous to such a soul with gifts
of nature, grace and glory in this life and in the next.

134. We must now consider as briefly as possible: 1) the
motives which commend this devotion to us, 2) the wonderful effects it produces
in faithful souls, and 3) the practices of this devotion.

Chapter 4. Motives which
recommend this devotion

1. By it we give ourselves completely to
God

135. This first motive shows us the excellence of the
consecration of ourselves to Jesus through Mary.

We can conceive of no higher calling than that of being in
the service of God and we believe that the least of God's servants is richer,
stronger, and nobler than any earthly monarch who does not serve God. How rich
and strong and noble then must be the good and faithful servant, who serves God
as unreservedly and as completely as he possibly can! Just such a person is the
faithful and loving slave of Jesus in Mary. He has indeed surrendered himself
entirely to the service of the King of kings through Mary, his Mother, keeping
nothing for himself. All the gold of the world and the beauties of the heavens
could not recompense him for what he has done.

136. Other congregations, associations, and confraternities
set up in honour of our Lord and our Blessed Lady, which do so much good in the
Church, do not require their members to give up absolutely everything. They
simply prescribe for them the performance of certain acts and practices in
fulfilment of their obligations. They leave them free to dispose of the rest of
their actions as well as their time. But this devotion makes us give Jesus and
Mary all our thoughts, words, actions, and sufferings and every moment of our
lives without exception. Thus, whatever we do, whether we are awake or asleep,
whether we eat or drink, whether we do important or unimportant work, it will
always be true to say that everything is done for Jesus and Mary. Our offering
always holds good, whether we think of it or not, unless we explicitly retract
it. How consoling this is!

137. Moreover, as I have said before, no other act of
devotion enables us to rid ourselves so easily of the possessiveness which slips
unnoticed even into our best actions. This is a remarkable grace which our dear
Lord grants us in return for the heroic and selfless surrender to him through
Mary of the entire value of our good works. If even in this life he gives a
hundredfold reward to those who renounce all material, temporal and perishable
things out of love for him, how generously will he reward those who give up even
interior and spiritual goods for his sake!

138. Jesus, our dearest friend, gave himself to us without
reserve, body and soul, grace and merits. As St. Bernard says, "He won me over
entirely by giving himself entirely to me." Does not simple justice as well as
gratitude require that we give him all we possibly can? He was generous with us
first, so let us be generous to him in return and he will prove still more
generous to us during life, at the hour of death, and throughout eternity. "He
will be generous towards the generous."

2. It helps us to imitate
Christ

139. Our good Master stooped to enclose himself in the womb
of the Blessed Virgin, a captive but loving slave, and to make himself subject
to her for thirty years. As I said earlier, the human mind is bewildered when it
reflects seriously upon this conduct of Incarnate Wisdom. He did not choose to
give himself in a direct manner to the human race though he could easily have
done so. He chose to come through the Virgin Mary. Thus he did not come into the
world independently of others in the flower of his manhood, but he came as a
frail little child dependent on the care and attention of his Mother. Consumed
with the desire to give glory to God, his Father, and save the human race, he
saw no better or shorter way to do so than by submitting completely to
Mary.

He did this not just for the first eight, ten or fifteen
years of his life like other children, but for thirty years. He gave more glory
to God, his Father, during all those years of submission and dependence than he
would have given by spending them working miracles, preaching far and wide, and
converting all mankind. Otherwise he would have done all these
things.

What immeasurable glory then do we give to God when,
following the example of Jesus, we submit to Mary! With such a convincing and
well-known example before us, can we be so foolish as to believe that there is a
better and shorter way of giving God glory than by submitting ourselves to Mary,
as Jesus did?

140. Let me remind you again of the dependence shown by the
three divine Persons on our Blessed Lady. Theirs is the example which fully
justifies our dependence on her. The Father gave and still gives his Son only
through her. He raises children for himself only through her. He dispenses his
graces to us only through her. God the Son was prepared for mankind in general
by her alone. Mary, in union with the Holy Spirit, still conceives him and
brings him forth daily. It is through her alone that the Son distributes his
merits and virtues. The Holy Spirit formed Jesus only through her, and he forms
the members of the Mystical Body and dispenses his gifts and his favours through
her.

With such a compelling example of the three divine Persons
before us, we would be extremely perverse to ignore her and not consecrate
ourselves to her. Indeed we would be blind if we did not see the need for Mary
in approaching God and making our total offering to him.

141. Here are a few passages from the Fathers of the Church
which I have chosen to prove what I have just said: "Mary has two sons, the one
a God-man, the other, mere man. She is Mother of the first corporally and of the
second spiritually" (St. Bonaventure and Origen).

"This is the will of God who willed that we should have all
things through Mary. If then, we possess any hope or grace or gift of salvation,
let us acknowledge that it comes to us through her" (St.
Bernard).

"All the gifts, graces, virtues of the Holy Spirit are
distributed by the hands of Mary, to whom she wills, when she wills, as she
wills, and in the measure she wills" (St. Bernardine).

"As you were not worthy that anything divine should be given
to you, all graces were given to Mary so that you might receive through her all
graces you would not otherwise receive" (St. Bernard).

142. St. Bernard tells us that God, seeing that we are
unworthy to receive his graces directly from him, gives them to Mary so that we
might receive from her all that he decides to give us. His glory is achieved
when he receives through Mary the gratitude, respect and love we owe him in
return for his gifts to us. It is only right then that we should imitate his
conduct, "in order," as St. Bernard again says, "that grace might return to its
author by the same channel through which it came to us."

This is what we do by this devotion. We offer and consecrate
all we are and all we possess to the Blessed Virgin in order that our Lord may
receive through her as intermediary the glory and gratitude that we owe to him.
We deem ourselves unworthy and unfit to approach his infinite majesty on our
own, and so we avail ourselves of Mary's intercession.

143. Moreover, this devotion is an expression of great
humility, a virtue which God loves above all others. A person who exalts himself
debases God, and a person who humbles himself exalts God. "God opposes the
proud, but gives his graces to the humble." If you humble yourself, convinced
that you are unworthy to appear before him, or even to approach him, he
condescends to come down to you. He is pleased to be with you and exalts you in
spite of yourself. But, on the other hand, if you venture to go towards God
boldly without a mediator, he vanishes and is nowhere to be found. How dearly he
loves the humble of heart! It is to such humility that this devotion leads us,
for it teaches us never to go alone directly to our Lord, however gentle and
merciful though he may be, but always to use Mary's power of intercession,
whether we want to enter his presence, speak to him, be near him, offer him
something, seek union with him or consecrate ourselves to
him.

3. It obtains many blessings
from our Lady

144. The Blessed Virgin, mother of gentleness and mercy,
never allows herself to be surpassed in love and generosity. When she sees
someone giving himself entirely to her in order to honour and serve her, and
depriving himself of what he prizes most in order to adorn her, she gives
herself completely in a wondrous manner to him. She engulfs him in the ocean of
her graces, adorns him with her merits, supports him with her power, enlightens
him with her light, and fills him with her love. She shares her virtues with him
- her humility, faith, purity, etc. She makes up for his failings and becomes
his representative with Jesus. Just as one who is consecrated belongs entirely
to Mary, so Mary belongs entirely to him. We can truthfully say of this perfect
servant and child of Mary what St. John in his Gospel says of himself, "He took
her for his own" (Jn. 19:27).

145. This produces in his soul, if he is persevering, a
great distrust, contempt, and hatred of self, and a great confidence in Mary
with complete self-abandonment to her. He no longer relies on his own
dispositions, intentions, merits, virtues and good works, since he has
sacrificed them completely to Jesus through his loving Mother. He has now only
one treasury, where all his wealth is stored. That treasury is not within
himself: it is Mary. That is why he can now go to our Lord without any servile
or scrupulous fear and pray to him with great confidence. He can also share the
sentiments of the devout and learned Abbot Rupert, who, referring to the victory
which Jacob won over an angel, addressed our Lady in these words, "O Mary, my
Queen, Immaculate Mother of the God-man, Jesus Christ, I desire to wrestle with
this man, the Divine Word, armed with your merits and not my
own."

How much stronger and more powerful are we in approaching
our Lord when we are armed with the merits and prayers of the worthy Mother of
God, who, as St. Augustine says, has conquered the Almighty by her
love!

146. Since by this devotion we give to our Lord, through the
hands of his holy Mother, all our good works, she purifies them, making them
beautiful and acceptable to her Son.

1. She purifies them of every taint of self-love and of that
unconscious attachment to creatures which slips unnoticed into our best actions.
Her hands have never been known to be idle or uncreative. They purify everything
they touch. As soon as the Blessed Virgin receives our good works, she removes
any blemish or imperfection she may find in them.

147. 2. She enriches our good works by adorning them with
her own merits and virtues. It is as if a poor peasant, wishing to win the
friendship and favour of the king, were to go the queen and give her an apple -
his only possession - for her to offer it to the king. The queen, accepting the
peasant's humble gift, puts it on a beautiful golden dish and presents it to the
king on behalf of the peasant. The apple in itself would not be a gift worthy of
a king, but presented by the queen in person on a dish of gold, it becomes fit
for any king.

148. 3. Mary presents our good works to Jesus. She does not
keep anything we offer for herself, as if she were our last end, but unfailingly
gives everything to Jesus. So by the very fact we give anything to her, we are
giving it to Jesus. Whenever we praise and glorify her, she immediately praises
and glorifies Jesus. When anyone praises and blesses her, she sings today as she
did on the day Elizabeth praised her, "My soul glorifies the Lord" (Lk.
1:46).

149. At Mary's request, Jesus accepts the gift of our good
works, no matter how poor and insignificant they may be for one who is the King
of kings, the Holiest of the holy. When we present anything to Jesus by
ourselves, relying on our own dispositions and efforts, he examines our gift and
often rejects it because it is stained with self-love, just as he once rejected
the sacrifices of the Jews because they were imbued with selfish
motives.

But when we present something to him by the pure, virginal
hands of his beloved Mother, we take him by his weak side, in a manner of
speaking. He does not consider so much the present itself as the person who
offers it. Thus Mary, who is never slighted by her Son but is always well
received, prevails upon him to accept with pleasure everything she offers him,
regardless of its value. Mary has only to present the gift for Jesus graciously
to accept it. This is what St. Bernard strongly recommended to all those he was
guiding along the pathway to perfection. "When you want to offer something to
God, to be welcomed by him, be sure to offer it through the worthy Mother of
God, if you do not wish to see it rejected."

150. Does not human nature itself, as we have seen, suggest
this mode of procedure to the less important people of this world with regard to
the great? Why should grace not inspire us to do likewise with regard to God? He
is infinitely exalted above us. We are less than atoms in his sight. But we have
an advocate so powerful that she is never refused anything. She is so
resourceful that she knows every secret way to win the heart of God. She is so
good and kind that she never passes over anyone no matter how lonely and
sinful.

Further on, I shall relate the story of Jacob and Rebecca
which exemplifies the truths I have been setting before you.

4. It is an excellent means of
giving glory to God

151. This devotion, when faithfully undertaken, is a perfect
means of ensuring that the value of all our good works is being used for the
greater glory of God. Scarcely anyone works for that noble end, in spite of the
obligation to do so, either because men do not know where God's greatest glory
is to be found or because they do not desire it. Now Mary, to whom we surrender
the value and merit of our good actions, knows perfectly well where God's
greatest glory lies and she works only to promote that glory. The devout servant
of our Lady, having entirely consecrated himself to her as I have described
above, can boldly claim that the value of all his actions, words and thoughts is
used for the greatest glory of God, unless he has explicitly retracted his
offering. For one who loves God with a pure and unselfish love and prizes God's
glory and interests far above his own, could anything be more
consoling?

5. It leads to union with our
Lord

152. This devotion is a smooth, short, perfect and sure way
of attaining union with our Lord, in which Christian perfection
consists.

a) This devotion is a smooth way. It is the path which Jesus
Christ opened up in coming to us and in which there is no obstruction to prevent
our reaching him. It is quite true that we can attain to divine union by other
roads, but these involve many more crosses and exceptional setbacks and many
difficulties that we cannot easily overcome. We would have to pass through
spiritual darkness, engage in struggles for which we are not prepared, endure
bitter agonies, scale precipitous mountains, tread upon painful thorns, and
cross frightful deserts. But when we take the path of Mary, we walk smoothly and
calmly.

It is true that on our way we have hard battles to fight and
serious obstacles to overcome, but Mary, our Mother and Queen, stays close to
her faithful servants. She is always at hand to brighten their darkness, clear
away their doubts, strengthen them in their fears, sustain them in their combats
and trials. Truly, in comparison with other ways, this virgin road to Jesus is a
path of roses and sweet delights. There have been some saints, not very many,
such as St. Ephrem, St. John Damascene, St. Bernard, St. Bernardine, St.
Bonaventure, and St. Francis de Sales, who have taken this smooth path to Jesus
Christ, because the Holy Spirit, the faithful Spouse of Mary, made it known to
them by a special grace. The other saints, who are the greater number, while
having a devotion to Mary, either did not enter or did not go very far along
this path. That is why they had to undergo harder and more dangerous
trials.

153. Why is it then, a servant of Mary might ask, that
devoted servants of this good Mother are called upon to suffer much more than
those who serve her less generously? They are opposed, persecuted, slandered,
and treated with intolerance. They may also have to walk in interior darkness
and through spiritual deserts without being given from heaven a single drop of
the dew of consolation. If this devotion to the Blessed Virgin makes the path to
Jesus smoother, how can we explain why Mary's loyal servants are so
ill-treated?

154. I reply that it is quite true that the most faithful
servants of the Blessed Virgin, being her greatest favourites, receive from her
the best graces and favours from heaven, which are crosses. But I maintain too
that these servants of Mary bear their crosses with greater ease and gain more
merit and glory. What could check another's progress a thousand times over, or
possibly bring about his downfall, does not balk them at all, but even helps
them on their way. For this good Mother, filled with the grace and unction of
the Holy Spirit, dips all the crosses she prepares for them in the honey of her
maternal sweetness and the unction of pure love. They then readily swallow them
as they would sugared almonds, though the crosses may be very bitter. I believe
that anyone who wishes to be devout and live piously in Jesus will suffer
persecution and will have a daily cross to carry. But he will never manage to
carry a heavy cross, or carry it joyfully and perseveringly, without a trusting
devotion to our Lady, who is the very sweetness of the cross. It is obvious that
a person could not keep on eating without great effort unripe fruit which has
not been sweetened.

155. b) This devotion is a short way to discover Jesus,
either because it is a road we do not wander from, or because, as we have just
said, we walk along this road with greater ease and joy, and consequently with
greater speed. We advance more in a brief period of submission to Mary and
dependence on her than in whole years of self-will and self-reliance. A man who
is obedient and submissive to Mary will sing of glorious victories over his
enemies. It is true, his enemies will try to impede his progress, force him to
retreat or try to make him fall. But with Mary's help, support and guidance, he
will go forward towards our Lord. Without falling, retreating and even without
being delayed, he will advance with giant strides towards Jesus along the same
road which, as is written, Jesus took to come to us with giant strides and in a
short time.

156. Why do you think our Lord spent only a few years here
on earth and nearly all of them in submission and obedience to his Mother? The
reason is that "attaining perfection in a short time, he lived a long time,"
even longer than Adam, whose losses he had come to make good. Yet Adam lived
more than nine hundred years!

Jesus lived a long time, because he lived in complete
submission to his Mother and in union with her, which obedience to his Father
required. The Holy Spirit tells us that the man who honours his mother is like a
man who stores up a treasure (Sir. 3:5). In other words, the man who honours
Mary, his Mother, to the extent of subjecting himself to her and obeying her in
all things will soon become very rich, because he is amassing riches every day
through Mary who has become his secret philosopher's stone.

There is another quotation from Holy Scripture, "My old age
will be found in the mercy of the bosom." According to the mystical
interpretation of these words it is in the bosom of Mary that people who are
young grow mature in enlightenment, in holiness, in experience and in wisdom,
and in a short time reach the fullness of the age of Christ. For it was Mary's
womb which encompassed and produced a perfect man. That same womb held the one
whom the whole universe can neither encompass nor contain.

157. c) This devotion is a perfect way to reach our Lord and
be united to him, for Mary is the most perfect and the most holy of all
creatures, and Jesus, who came to us in a perfect manner, chose no other road
for his great and wonderful journey. The Most High, the Incomprehensible One,
the Inaccessible One, He who is, deigned to come down to us poor earthly
creatures who are nothing at all. How was this done?

The Most High God came down to us in a perfect way through
the humble Virgin Mary, without losing anything of his divinity or holiness. It
is likewise through Mary that we poor creatures must ascend to almighty God in a
perfect manner without having anything to fear.

God, the Incomprehensible, allowed himself to be perfectly
comprehended and contained by the humble Virgin Mary without losing anything of
his immensity. So we must let ourselves be perfectly contained and led by the
humble Virgin without any reserve on our part.

God, the Inaccessible, drew near to us and united himself
closely, perfectly and even personally to our humanity through Mary without
losing anything of his majesty. So it is also through Mary that we must draw
near to God and unite ourselves to him perfectly, intimately, and without fear
of being rejected.

Lastly, He who is deigned to come down to us who are not and
turned our nothingness into God, or He who is. He did this perfectly by giving
and submitting himself entirely to the young Virgin Mary, without ceasing to be
in time He who is from all eternity. Likewise it is through Mary that we, who
are nothing, may become like God by grace and glory. We accomplish this by
giving ourselves to her so perfectly and so completely as to remain nothing, as
far as self is concerned, and to be everything in her, without any fear of
illusion.

158. Show me a new road to our Lord, pave it with all the
merits of the saints, adorn it with their heroic virtues, illuminate and enhance
it with the splendour and beauty of the angels, have all the angels and saints
there to guide and protect those who wish to follow it. Give me such a road and
truly, truly, I boldly say - and I am telling the truth - that instead of this
road, perfect though it be, I would still choose the immaculate way of Mary. It
is a way, a road without stain or spot, without original sin or actual sin,
without shadow or darkness. When our loving Jesus comes in glory once again to
reign upon earth - as he certainly will - he will choose no other way than the
Blessed Virgin, by whom he came so surely and so perfectly the first time. The
difference between his first and his second coming is that the first was secret
and hidden, but the second will be glorious and resplendent. Both are perfect
because both are through Mary. Alas, this is a mystery which we cannot
understand. "Here let every tongue be silent."

159. d) This devotion to our
Lady is a sure way to go to Jesus and to acquire holiness through union with
him.

1. The devotion which I teach is not new. Its history goes
back so far that the time of its origin cannot be ascertained with any
precision, as Fr. Boudon, who died a short time ago in the odour of sanctity,
states in a book which he wrote on this devotion. It is however certain that for
more than seven hundred years we find traces of it in the
Church.

St. Odilo, abbot of Cluny, who lived about the year 1040,
was one of the first to practise it publicly in France as is told in his
life.

Cardinal Peter Damian relates that in the year 1076 his
brother, Blessed Marino, made himself the slave of the Blessed Virgin in the
presence of his spiritual director in a most edifying manner. He placed a rope
around his neck, scourged himself and placed on the altar a sum of money as a
token of his devotion and consecration to our Lady. He remained so faithful to
this consecration all his life that me merited to be visited and consoled on his
deathbed by his dear Queen and hear from her lips the promise of paradise in
reward for his service.

Caesarius Bollandus mentions a famous knight, Vautier de
Birbak, a close relative of the Dukes of Louvain, who about the year 1300
consecrated himself to the Blessed Virgin.

This devotion was also practised privately by many people up
to the seventeenth century, when it became publicly known.

160. Father Simon de Rojas of the Order of the Holy Trinity
for the Redemption of Captives, court preacher to Philip III, made this devotion
popular throughout Spain and Germany. Through the intervention of Philip III, he
obtained from Gregory XV valuable indulgences for those who practised
it.

Father de los Rios, of the Order of St. Augustine, together
with his intimate friend, Father de Rojas, worked hard, propagating it
throughout Spain and Germany by preaching and writing. He composed a large
volume entitled Hierarchia Mariana, where he treats of the antiquity, the
excellence and the soundness of this devotion, with as much devotion as
learning.

The Theatine Fathers in the seventeenth century established
this devotion in Italy and Savoy.

161. Father Stanislaus Phalacius of the Society of Jesus
spread this devotion widely in Poland.

Father de los Rios in the book quoted above mentions the
names of princes and princesses, bishops and cardinals of different countries
who embraced this devotion.

Father Cornelius a Lapide, noted both for holiness and
profound learning, was commissioned by several bishops and theologians to
examine it. The praise he gave it after mature examination, is a worthy tribute
to his own holiness. Many other eminent men followed his
example.

The Jesuit Fathers, ever zealous in the service of our
Blessed Lady, presented on behalf of the sodalities of Cologne to Duke Ferdinand
of Bavaria, the then archbishop of Cologne, a little treatise on the devotion,
and he gave it his approval and granted permission to have it printed. He
exhorted all priests and religious of his diocese to do their utmost to spread
this solid devotion.

162. Cardinal de B�rulle, whose memory is venerated
throughout France, was outstandingly zealous in furthering the devotion in
France, despite the calumnies and persecution he suffered at the hands of
critics and evil men. They accused him of introducing novelty and superstition.
They composed and published a libellous tract against him and they - or rather
the devil in them - used a thousand stratagems to prevent him from spreading the
devotion in France. But this eminent and saintly man responded to their
calumnies with calm patience. He wrote a little book in reply to their libel and
forcefully refuted the objections contained in it. He pointed out that this
devotion is founded on the example given by Jesus Christ, on the obligations we
have towards him and on the promises we made in holy baptism. It was mainly this
last reason which silenced his enemies. He made clear to them that this
consecration to the Blessed Virgin, and through her to Jesus, is nothing less
than a perfect renewal of the promises and vows of baptism. He said many
beautiful things concerning this devotion which can be read in his
works.

163. In Fr. Boudon's book we read of different popes who
gave their approval to this devotion, the theologians who examined it, the
hostility it encountered and overcame, the thousands who made it their own
without censure from any pope. Indeed it could not be condemned without
overthrowing the foundations of Christianity.

It is obvious then that this devotion is not new. If it is
not commonly practised, the reason is that it is too sublime to be appreciated
and undertaken by everyone.

164. 2. This devotion is a safe means of going to Jesus
Christ, because it is Mary's role to lead us safely to her Son; just as it is
the role of our Lord to lead us to the eternal Father. Those who are
spiritually-minded should not fall into the error of thinking that Mary hinders
our union with God. How could this possibly happen? How could Mary, who found
grace with God for everyone in general and each one in particular, prevent a
soul from obtaining the supreme grace of union with him? Is it possible that she
who was so completely filled with grace to overflowing, so united to Christ and
transformed in God that it became necessary for him to be made flesh in her,
should prevent a soul from being perfectly united to him?

It is quite true that the example of other people, no matter
how holy, can sometimes impair union with God, but not so our Blessed Lady, as I
have said and shall never weary of repeating. One reason why so few souls come
to the fullness of the age of Jesus is that Mary who is still as much as ever
his Mother and the fruitful spouse of the Holy Spirit is not formed well enough
in their hearts. If we desire a ripe and perfectly formed fruit, we must possess
the tree that bears it. If we desire the fruit of life, Jesus Christ, we must
possess the tree of life which is Mary. If we desire to have the Holy Spirit
working within us, we must possess his faithful and inseparable spouse, Mary the
divinely-favoured one, whom as I have said elsewhere, he can make
fruitful.

165. Rest assured that the more you turn to Mary in your
prayers, meditations, actions and sufferings, seeing her, if not perhaps clearly
and distinctly, at least in a general and indistinct way, the more surely you
will discover Jesus. For he is always greater, more powerful, more active, and
more mysterious when acting through Mary than he is in any other creature in the
universe, or even in heaven. Thus Mary, so divinely-favoured and so lost in God,
is far from being an obstacle to good people who are striving for union with
him. There has never been and there never will be a creature so ready to help us
in achieving that union more effectively, for she will dispense to us all the
graces to attain that end. As a saint once remarked, "Only Mary knows how to
fill our minds with the thought of God" (St. Germanus). Moreover Mary will
safeguard us against the deception and cunning of the evil
one.

166. Where Mary is present, the evil one is absent. One of
the unmistakable signs that a person is led by the spirit of God is the devotion
he has to Mary, and his habit of thinking and speaking of her. This is the
opinion of a saint, who goes on to say that just as breathing is a proof that
the body is not dead, so the habitual thought of Mary and loving converse with
her is a proof that the soul is not spiritually dead in sin.

167. Since Mary alone has crushed all heresies, as we are
told by the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit (Office of B.V.M.), a
devoted servant of hers will never fall into formal heresy or error, though
critics may contest this. He may very well err materially, mistaking lies for
truth or an evil spirit for a good one, but he will be less likely to do this
than others. Sooner or later he will discover his error and will not go on
stubbornly believing and maintaining what he mistakenly thought was the
truth.

168. Whoever then wishes to advance along the road to
holiness and be sure of encountering the true Christ, without fear of the
illusions which afflict many devout people, should take up with valiant heart
and willing spirit this devotion to Mary which perhaps he had not previously
heard about. Even if it is new to him, let him enter upon this excellent way
which I am now revealing to him. "I will show you a more excellent way" (1 Cor.
12:31).

It was opened up by Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Wisdom. He
is our one and only Head, and we, his members, cannot go wrong in following him.
It is a smooth way made easy by the fullness of grace, the unction of the Holy
Spirit. In our progress along this road, we do not weaken or turn back. It is a
quick way and leads us to Jesus in a short time. It is a perfect way without mud
or dust or any vileness of sin. Finally, it is a reliable way, for it is direct
and sure, having no turnings to right or left but leading us straight to Jesus
and to life eternal.

Let us then take this road and travel along it night and day
until we arrive at the fullness of the age of Jesus Christ.

6. It gives great liberty of
spirit

169. It gives great liberty of spirit - the freedom of the
children of God - to those who faithfully practise it. For through this devotion
we make ourselves slaves of Jesus by consecrating ourselves entirely to him. To
reward us for this enslavement of love, our Lord frees us from every scruple and
servile fear which might restrict, imprison or confuse us; he opens our hearts
and fills them with holy confidence in God, helping us to regard God as our
Father; he inspires us with a generous and filial love.

170. Without stopping to prove this truth, I shall simply
relate an incident which I read in the life of Mother Agnes of Jesus, a
Dominican nun of the convent of Langeac in Auvergne, who died there in the odour
of sanctity in 1634.

When she was only seven years old and was suffering great
spiritual anguish, she heard a voice telling her that if she wished to be
delivered from her anguish and protected against all her enemies, she should
make herself the slave of our Lord and his Blessed Mother as soon as possible.
No sooner had she returned home than she gave herself completely to Jesus and
Mary as their slave, although she had never known anything about this devotion
before. She found an iron chain, put it around her waist and wore it till the
day she died. After this, all her sufferings and scruples disappeared and she
found great peace of soul.

This led her to teach this devotion to many others who made
rapid progress in it - among them, Father Olier, the founder of the Seminary of
St. Sulpice, and several other priests and students from the same seminary. One
day the Blessed Virgin appeared to Mother Agnes and put a gold chain around her
neck to show her how happy she was that Mother Agnes had become the slave of
both her and her Son. And St. Cecilia, who accompanied our Lady, said to her,
"Happy are the faithful slaves of the Queen of heaven, for they will enjoy true
freedom." Tibi servire libertas.

7. It is of great benefit to our
neighbour

171. Another consideration which may bring us to embrace
this practice is the great good which our neighbour receives from it. For by it
we show love for our neighbour in an outstanding way, since we give him through
Mary's hands all that we prize most highly - that is, the satisfactory and
prayer value of all our good works, down to the least good thought and the least
little suffering. We give our consent that all we have already acquired or will
acquire until death should be used in accordance with our Lady's will for the
conversion of sinners or the deliverance of souls from
purgatory.

Is this not perfect love of our neighbour? Is this not being
a true disciple of our Lord, one who should always be recognized by his love? Is
this not the way to convert sinners without any danger of vainglory, and deliver
souls from purgatory by doing hardly anything more than what we are obliged to
do by our state of life?

172. To appreciate the excellence of this motive we must
understand what a wonderful thing it is to convert a sinner or to deliver a soul
from purgatory. It is an infinite good, greater than the creation of heaven and
earth, since it gives a soul the possession of God. If by this devotion we
secured the release of only soul from purgatory or converted only one sinner in
our whole lifetime, would that not be enough to induce any person who really
loves his neighbour to practise this devotion?

It must be noted that our good works, passing through Mary's
hands, are progressively purified. Consequently, their merit and their
satisfactory and prayer value are also increased. That is why they become much
more effective in relieving the souls in purgatory and in converting sinners
than if they did not pass through the virginal and liberal hands of Mary.
Stripped of self-will and clothed with disinterested love, the little that we
give to the Blessed Virgin is truly powerful enough to appease the anger of God
and draw down his mercy. It may well be that at the hour of death a person who
has been faithful to this devotion will find that he has freed many souls from
purgatory and converted many sinners, even though he performed only the ordinary
actions of his state of life. Great will be his joy at the judgement. Great will
be his glory throughout eternity.

8. It is a wonderful means of
perseverance

173. Finally, what draws us in a sense more compellingly to
take up this devotion to the most Blessed Virgin is the fact that it is a
wonderful means of persevering in the practice of virtue and of remaining
steadfast. Why is it that most conversions of sinners are not lasting? Why do
they relapse so easily into sin? Why is it that most of the faithful, instead of
making progress in one virtue after another and so acquiring new graces, often
lose the little grace and virtue they have? This misfortune arises, as I have
already shown, from the fact that man, so prone to evil, so weak and changeable,
trusts himself too much, relies on his own strength, and wrongly presumes he is
able to safeguard his precious graces, virtues and merits.

By this devotion we entrust all we possess to Mary, the
faithful Virgin. We choose her as the guardian of all our possessions in the
natural and supernatural sphere. We trust her because she is faithful, we rely
on her strength, we count on her mercy and charity to preserve and increase our
virtues and merits in spite of the efforts of the devil, the world, and the
flesh to rob us of them. We say to her as a good child would say to its mother
or a faithful servant to the mistress of the house, "My dear Mother and
Mistress, I realize that up to now I have received from God through your
intercession more graces than I deserve. But bitter experience has taught me
that I carry these riches in a very fragile vessel and that I am too weak and
sinful to guard them by myself. Please accept in trust everything I possess, and
in your faithfulness and power keep it for me. If you watch over me, I shall
lose nothing. If you support me, I shall not fail. If you protect me, I shall be
safe from my enemies."

174. This is exactly what St. Bernard clearly pointed out to
encourage us to take up this devotion, "When Mary supports you, you will not
fail. With her as your protector, you will have nothing to fear. With her as
your guide, you will not grow weary. When you win her favour, you will reach the
port of heaven." St. Bonaventure seems to say the same thing in even more
explicit terms, "The Blessed Virgin," he says, "not only preserves the fullness
enjoyed by the saints, but she maintains the saints in their fullness so that it
does not diminish. She prevents their virtues from fading away, their merits
from being wasted and their graces from being lost. She prevents the devils from
doing them harm and she so influences them that her divine Son has no need to
punish them when they sin."

175. Mary is the Virgin most faithful who by her fidelity to
God makes good the losses caused by Eve's unfaithfulness. She obtains fidelity
to God and final perseverance for those who commit themselves to her. For this
reason, St. John Damascene compared her to a firm anchor which holds them fast
and saves them from shipwreck in the raging seas of the world where so many
people perish through lack of such a firm anchor. "We fasten souls," he said,
"to Mary, our hope, as to a firm anchor." It was to Mary that the saints who
attained salvation most firmly anchored themselves as did others who wanted to
ensure their perseverance in holiness.

Blessed, indeed, are those Christians who bind themselves
faithfully and completely to her as to a secure anchor! The violent storms of
the world will not make them founder or carry away their heavenly riches.
Blessed are those who enter into her as into another Noah's ark! The flood
waters of sin which engulf so many will not harm them because, as the Church
makes Mary say in the words of divine Wisdom, "Those who work with my help," for
their salvation, "shall not sin" (Sir. 24:22). Blessed are the unfaithful
children of unhappy Eve who commit themselves to Mary, the ever-faithful Virgin
and Mother who never wavers in her fidelity and never goes back on her trust.
She always loves those who love her (Prov. 8:17), not only with deep affection,
but with a love that is active and generous. By an abundant outpouring of grace
she keeps them from relaxing their effort in the practice of virtue or falling
by the wayside through the loss of divine grace.

176. Moved by pure love, this good Mother always accepts
whatever is given her in trust, and, once she accepts something, she binds
herself in justice by a contract of trusteeship to keep it safe. Is not someone
to whom I entrust the sum of a thousand francs obliged to keep it safe for me,
so that if it were lost through his negligence he would be responsible for it in
strict justice? But nothing we entrust to the faithful Virgin will ever be lost
through her negligence. Heaven and earth would pass away sooner than Mary would
neglect or betray those who trusted in her.

177. Poor children of Mary, you are extremely weak and
changeable. Your human nature is deeply impaired. It is sadly true that you have
been fashioned from the same corrupted nature as the other children of Adam and
Eve. But do not let that discourage you. Rejoice and be glad! Here is a secret
which I am revealing to you, a secret unknown to most Christians, even the most
devout.

Do not leave your gold and silver in your own safes which
have already been broken into and rifled many times by the evil one. They are
too small, too flimsy and too old to contain such great and priceless
possessions. Do not put pure and clear water from the spring into vessels fouled
and infected by sin. Even if sin is no longer there, its odour persists and the
water would be contaminated. You do not put choice wine into old casks that have
contained sour wine. You would spoil the good wine and run the risk of losing
it.

178. Chosen souls, although you may already understand me, I
shall express myself still more clearly. Do not commit the gold of your charity,
the silver of your purity to a threadbare sack or a battered old chest, or the
waters of heavenly grace or the wines of your merits and virtues to a tainted
and fetid cask, such as you are. Otherwise you will be robbed by thieving devils
who are on the look-out day and night waiting for a favourable opportunity to
plunder. If you do so, all those pure gifts from God will be spoiled by the
unwholesome presence of self-love, inordinate self-reliance, and
self-will.

Pour into the bosom and heart of Mary all your precious
possessions, all your graces and virtues. She is a spiritual vessel, a vessel of
honour, a singular vessel of devotion. Ever since God personally hid himself
with all his perfections in this vessel, it has become completely spiritual, and
the spiritual abode of all spiritual souls. It has become honourable and has
been the throne of honour for the greatest saints in heaven. It has become
outstanding in devotion and the home of those renowned for gentleness, grace and
virtue. Moreover, it has become as rich as a house of gold, as strong as a tower
of David and as pure as a tower of ivory.

179. Blessed is the man who has given everything to Mary,
who at all times and in all things trusts in her, and loses himself in her. He
belongs to Mary and Mary belongs to him. With David (Ps. 118:56) he can boldly
say, "She was created for me," or with the beloved disciple (Jn. 19:27), "I have
taken her for my own," or with our Lord himself (Jn. 17:10), "All that is mine
is yours and all that is yours is mine."

180. If any critic reading this should imagine that I am
exaggerating or speaking from an excess of devotion, he has not, alas,
understood what I have said. Either he is a carnal man who has no taste for the
spiritual; or he is a worldly man who has cut himself off from the Holy Spirit;
or he is a proud and critical man who ridicules and condemns anything he does
not understand. But those who are born not of blood, nor of flesh, nor of the
will of man, but of God and Mary, understand and appreciate what I have to say.
It is for them that I am writing.

181. Nevertheless, after this digression, I say to both the
critics and the devout that the Blessed Virgin, the most reliable and generous
of all God's creatures, never lets herself be surpassed by anyone in love and
generosity. For the little that is given to her, she gives generously of what
she has received from God. Consequently, if a person gives himself to her
without reserve, she gives herself also without reserve to that person provided
his confidence in her is not presumptuous and he does his best to practise
virtue and curb his passions.

182. So the faithful servants of the Blessed Virgin may
confidently say with St. John Damascene, "If I confide in you, Mother of God, I
shall be saved. Under your protection I shall fear nothing. With your help I
shall rout all my enemies. For devotion to you is a weapon of salvation which
God gives to those he wishes to save."

183. The Holy Spirit gives us, in Sacred Scripture, a
striking allegorical figure of all the truths I have been explaining concerning
the Blessed Virgin and her children and servants. It is the story of Jacob who
received the blessing of his father Isaac through the care and ingenuity of his
mother Rebecca.

Here is the story as the Holy Spirit tells it. I shall
expound it further later on.

1. The story of
Jacob

184. Several years after Esau had sold his birthright to
Jacob, Rebecca, their mother, who loved Jacob tenderly, secured this blessing
for him by a holy stratagem full of mystery for us.

Isaac, realizing that he was getting old, wished to bless
his children before he died. He summoned Esau, who was his favourite son, and
told him to go hunting and bring him something to eat, in order that he might
then give him his blessing. Rebecca immediately told Jacob what was happening
and sent him to fetch two small goats from the flock. When Jacob gave them to
his mother, she cooked them in the way Isaac liked them. Then she dressed Jacob
in Esau's clothes which she had in her keeping, and covered his hands and neck
with the goat-skin. The father, who was blind, although hearing the voice of
Jacob, would think that it was Esau when he touched the skin on his
hands.

Isaac was of course surprised at the voice which he thought
was Jacob's and told him to come closer. Isaac felt the hair on the skin
covering Jacob's hands and said that the voice was really like Jacob's but the
hands were Esau's. After he had eaten, Isaac kissed Jacob and smelt the
fragrance of his scented clothes. He blessed him and called down on him the dew
of heaven and the fruitfulness of earth. He made him master of all his brothers
and concluded his blessing with these words, "Cursed be those who curse you and
blessed be those who bless you."

Isaac had scarcely finished speaking when Esau came in,
bringing what he had caught while out hunting. He wanted his father to bless him
after he had eaten. The holy patriarch was shocked when he realized what had
happened. But far from retracting what he had done, he confirmed it because he
clearly saw the finger of God in it all. Then as Holy Scripture relates, Esau
began to protest loudly against the treachery of his brother. He then asked his
father if he had only one blessing to give. In so doing, as the early Fathers
point out, Esau was the symbol of those who are too ready to imagine that there
is an alliance between God and the world, because they themselves are eager to
enjoy, at one and the same time, the blessings of heaven and the blessings of
the earth. Isaac was touched by Esau's cries and finally blessed him only with a
blessing of the earth, and he subjected him to his brother. Because of this Esau
conceived such a venomous hatred for Jacob that he could hardly wait for his
father's death to kill him. And Jacob would not have escaped death if his dear
mother Rebecca had not saved him by her ingenuity and her good
advice.

2. Interpretation of the
story

185. Before explaining this beautiful story, let me remind
you that, according to the early Fathers and the interpreters of Holy Scripture,
Jacob is the type of our Lord and of souls who are saved, and Esau is the type
of souls who are condemned. We have only to examine the actions and conduct of
both in order to judge each one.

1. Esau, the elder brother, was
strong and robust, clever, and skilful with the bow and very successful at
hunting.

2. He seldom stayed at home and,
relying only on his own strength and skill, worked out of
doors.

3. He never went out of his way
to please his mother Rebecca, and did little or nothing for
her.

4. He was such a glutton and so
fond of eating that he sold his birthright for a dish of
lentils.

5. Like Cain, he was extremely
jealous of his brother and persecuted him relentlessly.

186. This is the usual conduct
of sinners:

1. They rely upon their own strength and skill in temporal
affairs. They are very energetic, clever and well-informed about things of this
world but very dull and ignorant about things of heaven.

187. 2. And they are never or very seldom at home, in their
own house, that is, in their own interior, the inner, essential abode that God
has given to every man to dwell in, after his own example, for God always abides
within himself. Sinners have no liking for solitude or the spiritual life or
interior devotion. They consider those who live an interior life, secluded from
the world, and who work more interiorly than exteriorly, as narrow-minded,
bigoted and uncivilized.

188. 3. Sinners care little or nothing about devotion to
Mary the Mother of the elect. It is true that they do not really hate her.
Indeed they even speak well of her sometimes. They say they love her and they
practise some devotion in her honour. Nevertheless they cannot bear to see
anyone love her tenderly, for they do not have for her any of the affection of
Jacob; they find fault with the honour which her good children and servants
faithfully pay her to win her affection. They think this kind of devotion is not
necessary for salvation, and as long as they do not go as far as hating her or
openly ridiculing devotion to her they believe they have done all they need to
win her good graces. Because they recite or mumble a few prayers to her without
any affection and without even thinking of amending their lives, they consider
they are our Lady's servants.

189. 4. Sinners sell their birthright, that is, the joys of
paradise, for a dish of lentils, that is, the pleasures of this world. They
laugh, they drink, they eat, they have a good time, they gamble, they dance and
so forth, without taking any more trouble than Esau to make themselves worthy of
their heavenly Father's blessing. Briefly, they think only of this world, love
only the world, speak and act only for the world and its pleasures. For a
passing moment of pleasure, for a fleeting wisp of honour, for a piece of hard
earth, yellow or white, they barter away their baptismal grace, their robe of
innocence and their heavenly inheritance.

190. 5. Finally, sinners continually hate and persecute the
elect, openly and secretly. The elect are a burden to them. They despise them,
criticize them, ridicule them, insult them, rob them, deceive them, impoverish
them, hunt them down and trample them into the dust; while they themselves are
making fortunes, enjoying themselves, getting good positions for themselves,
enriching themselves, rising to power and living in comfort.

191. Jacob, the younger son, was of a frail constitution,
gentle and peaceable and usually stayed at home to please his mother, whom he
loved so much. If he did go out it was not through any personal desire of his,
nor from any confidence in his own ability, but simply out of obedience to his
mother.

192. He loved and honoured his mother. That is why he
remained at home close to her. He was never happier than when he was in her
presence. He avoided everything that might displease her, and did everything he
thought would please her. This made Rebecca love him all the
more.

193. He was submissive to his mother in all things. He
obeyed her entirely in everything, promptly without delay and lovingly without
complaint. At the least indication of her will, young Jacob hastened to comply
with it. He accepted whatever she told him without questioning. For instance,
when she told him to get two small goats and bring them to her so that she might
prepare something for his father Isaac to eat, Jacob did not reply that one
would be enough for one man, but without arguing he did exactly what she told
him to do.

194. He had the utmost confidence in his mother. He did not
rely on his own ability; he relied solely on his mother's care and protection.
He went to her in all his needs and consulted her in all his doubts. For
instance, when he asked her if his father, instead of blessing him, would curse
him, he believed her and trusted her when she said she would take the curse upon
herself.

195. Finally, he adopted, as much as he could, the virtues
he saw in his mother. It seems that one of the reasons why he spent so much time
at home was to imitate his dear mother, who was so virtuous, and to keep away
from evil companions - who might lead him into sin. In this way, he made himself
worthy to receive the double blessing of his beloved father.

196. It is in a similar manner that God's chosen ones
usually act. They stay at home with their mother - that is, they have an esteem
for quietness, love the interior life, and are assiduous in prayer. They always
remain in the company of the Blessed Virgin, their Mother and Model, whose glory
is wholly interior and who during her whole life dearly loved seclusion and
prayer. It is true, at times they do venture out into the world, but only to
fulfil the duties of their state of life, in obedience to the will of God and
the will of their Mother.

No matter how great their accomplishments may appear to
others, they attach far more importance to what they do within themselves in
their interior life, in the company of the Blessed Virgin. For there they work
at the great task of perfection, compared to which all other work is mere
child's play. At times their brothers and sisters are working outside with great
energy, skill and success, and win the praise and approbation of the world. But
they know by the light of the Holy Spirit, that there is far more good, more
glory and more joy in remaining hidden and recollected with our Lord, in
complete and perfect submission to Mary, than there is in performing by
themselves marvellous works of nature and grace in the world, like so many Esaus
and sinners. Glory for God and riches for men are in her
house.

Lord Jesus, how lovely is your dwelling place! The sparrow
has found a house to dwell in, and the turtle-dove a nest for her little ones!
How happy is the man who dwells in the house of Mary, where you were the first
to dwell! Here in this home of the elect, he draws from you alone the help he
needs to climb the stairway of virtue he has built in his heart to the highest
possible points of perfection while in this vale of tears. "How lovely is your
dwelling place, Lord, God of hosts!" (Ps. 83:2).

197. The elect have a great love for our Lady and honour her
truly as their Mother and Queen. They love her not merely in word but in deed.
They honour her not just outwardly, but from the depths of their heart. Like
Jacob, they avoid the least thing that might displease her, and eagerly do
whatever they think might win her favour. Jacob brought Rebecca two young goats.
They bring Mary their body and their soul, with all their faculties, symbolized
by Jacob's two young goats, 1) so that she may accept them as her own; 2) that
she may make them die to sin and self by divesting them of self-love, in order
to please Jesus her Son, who wishes to have as friends and disciples only those
who are dead to sin and self; 3) that she may clothe them according to their
heavenly Father's taste and for his greater glory, which she knows better than
any other creature; 4) that through her care and intercession, this body and
soul of theirs, thoroughly cleansed from every stain, thoroughly dead to self,
thoroughly stripped and well-prepared, may be pleasing to the heavenly Father
and deserving of his blessing.

Is this not what those chosen souls do who, to prove to
Jesus and Mary how effective and courageous is their love, live and esteem the
perfect consecration to Jesus through Mary which we are now teaching
them?

Sinners may say that they love Jesus, that they love and
honour Mary, but they do not do so with their whole heart and soul. Unlike the
elect, they do not love Jesus and Mary enough to consecrate them their body with
its senses and their soul with its passions.

198. They are subject and obedient to our Lady, their good
Mother, and here they are simply following the example set by our Lord himself,
who spent thirty of the thirty-three years he lived on earth glorifying God his
Father in perfect and entire submission to his holy Mother. They obey her,
following her advice to the letter, just as Jacob followed that of Rebecca, when
she said to him, "My son, follow my advice" (Gen. 27:8); or like the stewards at
the wedding in Cana, to whom our Lady said, "Do whatever he tells you" (Jn.
2:5).

Through obedience to his mother, Jacob received the blessing
almost by a miracle, because in the natural course of events he should not have
received it. As a reward for following the advice of our Lady, the stewards at
the wedding in Cana were honoured with the first of our Lord's miracles when, at
her request he changed water into wine. In the same way, until the end of time,
all who are to receive the blessing of our heavenly Father and who are to be
honoured with his wondrous graces will receive them only as a result of their
perfect obedience to Mary. On the other hand, the "Esaus" will lose their
blessing because of their lack of submission to the Blessed
Virgin.

199. They have great confidence in the goodness and power of
the Blessed Virgin, their dear Mother, and incessantly implore her help. They
take her for their pole-star to lead them safely into harbour. They open their
hearts to her and tell her their troubles and their needs. They rely on her
mercy and kindness to obtain forgiveness for their sins through her intercession
and to experience her motherly comfort in their troubles and anxieties. They
even cast themselves into her virginal bosom, hide and lose themselves there in
a wonderful manner. There they are filled with pure love, they are purified from
the least stain of sin, and they find Jesus in all his fullness. For he reigns
in Mary as if on the most glorious of thrones. What incomparable happiness!
Abbot Guerric says, "Do not imagine there is more joy in dwelling in Abraham's
bosom than in Mary's, for it is in her that our Lord placed his
throne."

Sinners, on the other hand, put all their confidence in
themselves. Like the prodigal son, they eat with the swine. Like toads they feed
on earth. Like all worldlings, they love only visible and external things. They
do not know the sweetness of Mary's bosom. They do not have that reliance and
confidence which the elect have for the Blessed Virgin, their Mother. Deplorably
they choose to satisfy their hunger elsewhere, as St. Gregory says, because they
do not want to taste the sweetness already prepared within themselves and within
Jesus and Mary.

200. Finally, chosen souls keep to the ways of the Blessed
Virgin, their loving Mother - that is, they imitate her and so are sincerely
happy and devout and bear the infallible sign of God's chosen ones. This loving
Mother says to them "Happy are those who keep my ways" (Prov. 8:32), which
means, happy are those who practise my virtues and who, with the help of God's
grace, follow the path of my life. They are happy in this world because of the
abundance of grace and sweetness I impart to them out of my fullness, and which
they receive more abundantly than others who do not imitate me so closely. They
are happy at the hour of death which is sweet and peaceful for I am usually
there myself to lead them home to everlasting joy. Finally, they will be happy
for all eternity, because no servant of mine who imitated my virtues during life
has ever been lost.

On the other hand, sinners are unhappy during their life, at
their death, and throughout eternity, because they do not imitate the virtues of
our Lady. They are satisfied with going no further than joining her
confraternities, reciting a few prayers in her honour, or performing other
exterior devotional exercises.

O Blessed Virgin, my dear Mother, how happy are those who
faithfully keep your ways, your counsels and your commands; who never allow
themselves to be led astray by a false devotion to you! But how unhappy and
accursed are those who abuse devotion to you by not keeping the commandments of
your Son! "They are accursed who stray from your commandments" (Ps.
118:21).

3. Services of our Lady to her
faithful servants

201. Here now are the services which the Virgin Mary, as the
best of all mothers, lovingly renders to those loyal servants who have given
themselves entirely to her in the manner I have described and following the
figurative meaning of the story of Jacob and Rebecca.

1. She loves
them

"I love those who love me"
(Prov. 8:17). She loves them:

a) Because she is truly their
Mother. What mother does not love her child, the fruit of her
womb?

b) She loves them in gratitude
for the active love they show to her, their beloved Mother.

c) She loves them because they
are loved by God and destined for heaven. "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated" (Ml.
1:2-3).

d) She loves them because they
have consecrated themselves entirely to her and belong to her portion, her
inheritance. "In Israel receive your inheritance" (Sir.
24:13).

202. She loves them tenderly, more tenderly than all the
mothers in the world together. Take the maternal love of all the mothers of the
world for their children. Pour all that love into the heart of one mother for an
only child. That mother's love would certainly be immense. Yet Mary's love for
each of her children has more tenderness than the love of that mother for her
child.

She loves them not only affectively but effectively, that
is, her love is active and productive of good like Rebecca's love for Jacob -
and even more so, for Rebecca was, after all, only a symbolic figure of Mary.
Here is what this loving Mother does for her children to obtain for them the
blessings of their heavenly Father:

203. 1. Like Rebecca she looks out for favourable
opportunities to promote their interests, to ennoble and enrich them. She sees
clearly in God all that is good and all that is evil; fortunate and unfortunate
events; the blessings and condemnations of God. She arranges things in advance
so as to divert evils from her servants and put them in the way of abundant
blessings. If there is any special benefit to be gained in God's sight by the
faithful discharge of an important work, Mary will certainly obtain this
opportunity for a beloved child and servant and at the same time, give him the
grace to persevere in it to the end. "She personally manages our affairs," says
a saintly man (Raymundus Jordanus).

204. 2. She gives them excellent advice, as Rebecca did to
Jacob. "My son, follow my counsels" (Gen. 27:8). Among other things, she
persuades them to bring her the two young goats, that is, their body and soul,
and to confide them to her so that she can prepare them as a dish pleasing to
God. She inspires them to observe whatever Jesus Christ, her Son, has taught by
word and example. When she does not give these counsels herself in person, she
gives them through the ministry of angels who are always pleased and honoured to
go at her request to assist one of her faithful servants on
earth.

205. 3. What does this good Mother do when we have presented
and consecrated to her our soul and body and all that pertains to them without
excepting anything? Just what Rebecca of old did to the little goats Jacob
brought her. a) She kills them, that is, makes them die to the life of the old
Adam. b) She strips them of their skin, that is, of their natural inclinations,
their self-love and self-will and their every attachment to creatures. c) She
cleanses them from all stain, impurity and sin. d) She prepares them to God's
taste and to his greater glory. As she alone knows perfectly what the divine
taste is and where the greatest glory of God is to be found, she alone without
any fear of mistake can prepare and garnish our body and soul to satisfy that
infinitely refined taste and promote that infinitely hidden
glory.

206. 4. Once this good Mother has received our complete
offering with our merits and satisfactions through the devotion I have been
speaking about, and has stripped us of our own garments, she cleanses us and
makes us worthy to appear without shame before our heavenly
Father.

She clothes us in the clean, new, precious and fragrant
garments of Esau, the first born, namely, her Son Jesus Christ. She keeps these
garments in her house, that is to say, she has them at her disposal. For she is
the treasurer and universal dispenser of the merits and virtues of Jesus her
Son. She gives and distributes them to whom she pleases, when she pleases, as
she pleases, and as much as she pleases, as we have said
above.

She covers the neck and hands of her servants with the skins
of the goats that have been killed and flayed, that is, she adorns them with the
merits and worth of their own good actions. In truth, she destroys and nullifies
all that is impure and imperfect in them, but at the same time keeps the good
that grace has produced in them. She preserves and enhances this good so that it
adorns and strengthens their neck and hands, that is, she gives them the
strength to carry the yoke of the Lord and the skill to do great things for the
glory of God and the salvation of their poor brothers.

She imparts new perfume and fresh grace to those garments
and adornments by adding to them the garments of her own wardrobe of merits and
virtues. She bequeathed these to them before her departure for heaven, as was
revealed by a holy nun of the last century, who died in the odour of sanctity
(Mary of Agreda). Thus all her domestics, that is, all her servants and slaves,
are clothed with double garments (Prov. 31:21), her own and those of her Son.
Now they have nothing to fear from that cold which sinners, naked and stripped
as they are of the merits of Jesus and Mary, will be unable to
endure.

207. 5. Finally, Mary obtains for them the heavenly Father's
blessing. As they are the youngest born and adopted, they are not really
entitled to it. Clad in new, precious, and sweet-smelling garments, with body
and soul well-prepared and dressed, they confidently approach their heavenly
Father. He hears their voice and recognizes it as the voice of a sinner. He
feels their hands covered with skins, inhales the aroma of their garments. He
partakes with joy of what Mary, their Mother, has prepared for him, recognizing
in it the merits and good odour of his Son and his Blessed
Mother.

a) He gives them a twofold blessing, the blessing of the dew
of heaven (Gen. 27:28), namely, divine grace, which is the seed of glory. "God
has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing" (Eph. 1:3), and also the
blessing of the fertility of the earth (Gen. 27:28), for as a provident Father,
he gives them their daily bread and an ample supply of the goods of the
earth.

b) He makes them masters of their other brothers, the
reprobate sinners. This domination does not always show in this fleeting world,
where sinners often have the upper hand. "How long shall the wicked glory,
mouthing insolent speeches?" (Ps. 93:3-4). "I have seen the wicked triumphant
and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon" (Ps. 36:35). But the supremacy of the
just is real and will be seen clearly for all eternity in the next world, where
the just, as the Holy Spirit tells us, will dominate and command all peoples
(Wis. 3:8).

c) The God of all majesty is not satisfied with blessing
them in their persons and their possessions, he blesses all who bless them and
curses all who curse and persecute them.

2. She provides for all their
needs

208. The second charitable duty that our Lady fulfils
towards her faithful servants is that she provides them with everything they
need for body and soul. We have just seen that she gives them double garments.
She also nourishes them with the most delicious food from the banquet table of
God. She gives them the Son she has borne, the Bread of Life, to be their food,
"Dear children," she says in the words of divine Wisdom, "take your fill of my
fruits" (Sir. 24:26), that is to say, of the Fruit of Life, Jesus, "whom I
brought into the world for you." "Come," she repeats in another passage, "eat
the bread which is Jesus. Drink the wine of his love which I have mixed for you
with the milk of my breasts."

As Mary is the treasurer and dispenser of the gifts and
graces of the Most High God, she reserves a choice portion, indeed the choicest
portion, to nourish and sustain her children and servants. They grow strong on
the Bread of Life; they are made joyful with the wine that brings forth virgins.
They are carried at her breast. They bear with ease the yoke of Christ scarcely
feeling its weight because of the oil of devotion with which she has softened
its wood.

3. She leads and guides
them

209. A third service which our Lady renders her faithful
servants is to lead and direct them according to the will of her Son. Rebecca
guided her little son Jacob and gave him good advice from time to time, which
helped him obtain the blessing of his father and saved him from the hatred and
persecution of his brother Esau. Mary, Star of the sea, guides all her faithful
servants into safe harbour. She shows them the path to eternal life and helps
them avoid dangerous pitfalls. She leads them by the hand along the path of
holiness, steadies them when they are liable to fall and helps them rise when
they have fallen. She chides them like a loving mother when they are remiss and
sometimes she even lovingly chastises them. How could a child that follows such
a mother and such an enlightened guide as Mary take the wrong path to heaven?
Follow her and you cannot go wrong, says St. Bernard. There is no danger of a
true child of Mary being led astray by the devil and falling into heresy. Where
Mary leads, Satan with his deceptions and heretics with their subtleties are not
encountered. "When she upholds you, you will not fall."

4. She defends and protects
them

210. The fourth good office our Lady performs for her
children and faithful servants is to defend and protect them against their
enemies. By her care and ingenuity Rebecca delivered Jacob from all dangers that
beset him and particularly from dying at the hands of his brother, as he
apparently would have done, since Esau hated and envied him just as Cain hated
his brother, Abel.

Mary, the beloved Mother of chosen souls, shelters them
under her protecting wings as a hen does her chicks. She speaks to them, coming
down to their level and accommodating herself to all their weaknesses. To ensure
their safety from the hawk and vulture, she becomes their escort, surrounding
them as an army in battle array. Could anyone surrounded by a well-ordered army
of, say, a hundred thousand men fear his enemies? No, and still less would a
faithful servant of Mary, protected on all sides by her imperial forces, fear
his enemy. This powerful Queen of heaven would sooner despatch millions of
angels to help one of her servants than have it said that a single faithful and
trusting servant of hers had fallen victim to the malice, number and power of
his enemies.

5. She intercedes for
them

211. Finally, the fifth and greatest service which this
loving Mother renders her faithful followers is to intercede for them with her
Son. She appeases him with her prayers, brings her servants into closest union
with him and maintains that union.

Rebecca made Jacob approach the bed of his father. His
father touched him, embraced him and even joyfully kissed him after having
satisfied his hunger with the well-prepared dishes which Jacob had brought him.
Then inhaling most joyfully the exquisite perfume of his garments, he cried:
"Behold the fragrance of my son is as the fragrance of a field of plenty which
the Lord has blessed" (Gen. 27:27). The fragrance of this rich field which so
captivated the heart of the father, is none other than the fragrance of the
merits and virtues of Mary who is the plentiful field of grace in which God the
Father has sown the grain of wheat of the elect, his only
Son.

How welcome to Jesus Christ, the Father of the world to
come, is a child perfumed with the fragrance of Mary! How readily and how
intimately does he unite himself to that child! But this we have already shown
at length.

212. Furthermore, once Mary has heaped her favours upon her
children and her faithful servants and has secured for them the blessing of the
heavenly Father and union with Jesus Christ, she keeps them in Jesus and keeps
Jesus in them. She guards them, watching over them unceasingly, lest they lose
the grace of God and fall into the snares of their enemies. "She keeps the
saints in their fullness" (St. Bonaventure), and inspires them to persevere to
the end, as we have already said.

Such is the explanation given to this ancient allegory which
typifies the mystery of predestination and reprobation.

Chapter 6. Wonderful effects of
this devotion

213. My dear friend, be sure that if you remain faithful to
the interior and exterior practices of this devotion which I will point out, the
following effects will be produced in your soul:

1. Knowledge of our
unworthiness

By the light which the Holy Spirit will give you through
Mary, his faithful spouse, you will perceive the evil inclinations of your
fallen nature and how incapable you are of any good apart from that which God
produces in you as Author of nature and of grace. As a consequence of this
knowledge you will despise yourself and think of yourself only as an object of
repugnance. You will consider yourself as a snail that soils everything with its
slime, as a toad that poisons everything with its venom, as a malevolent serpent
seeking only to deceive. Finally, the humble Virgin Mary will share her humility
with you so that, although you regard yourself with distaste and desire to be
disregarded by others, you will not look down slightingly upon
anyone.

2. A share in Mary's
faith

214. Mary will share her faith with you. Her faith on earth
was stronger than that of all the patriarchs, prophets, apostles and saints. Now
that she is reigning in heaven she no longer has this faith, since she sees
everything clearly in God by the light of glory. However, with the consent of
almighty God she did not lose it when entering heaven. She has preserved it for
her faithful servants in the Church militant. Therefore the more you gain the
friendship of this noble Queen and faithful Virgin, the more you will be
inspired by faith in your daily life. It will cause you to depend less upon
sensible and extraordinary feelings. For it is a lively faith animated by love
enabling you to do everything from no other motive than that of pure love. It is
a firm faith, unshakable as a rock, prompting you to remain firm and steadfast
in the midst of storms and tempests. It is an active and probing faith which
like some mysterious pass-key admits you into the mysteries of Jesus Christ and
of man's final destiny and into the very heart of God himself. It is a
courageous faith which inspires you to undertake and carry out without
hesitation great things for God and the salvation of souls. Lastly, this faith
will be your flaming torch, your very life with God, your secret fund of divine
Wisdom, and an all-powerful weapon for you to enlighten those who sit in
darkness and the shadow of death. It inflames those who are lukewarm and need
the gold of fervent love. It restores life to those who are dead through sin. It
moves and transforms hearts of marble and cedars of Lebanon by gentle and
convincing argument. Finally, this faith will strengthen you to resist the devil
and the other enemies of salvation.

3. The gift of pure
love

215. The Mother of fair love will rid your heart of all
scruples and inordinate servile fear. She will open and enlarge it to obey the
commandments of her Son with alacrity and with the holy freedom of the children
of God. She will fill your heart with pure love of which she is the treasury.
You will then cease to act as you did before, out of fear of the God who is
love, but rather out of pure love. You will look upon him as a loving Father and
endeavour to please him at all times. You will speak trustfully to him as a
child does to its father. If you should have the misfortune to offend him you
will abase yourself before him and humbly beg his pardon. You will offer your
hand to him with simplicity and lovingly rise from your sin. Then, peaceful and
relaxed and buoyed up with hope you will continue on your way to
him.

4. Great confidence in God and
in Mary

216. Our Blessed Lady will fill
you with unbounded confidence in God and in herself:

1. Because you will no longer
approach Jesus by yourself but always through Mary, your loving
Mother.

2. Since you have given her all your merits, graces and
satisfactions to dispose of as she pleases, she imparts to you her own virtues
and clothes you in her own merits. So you will be able to say confidently to
God: "Behold Mary, your handmaid, be it done unto me according to your
word."

3. Since you have now given yourself completely to Mary,
body and soul, she, who is generous to the generous, and more generous than even
the kindest benefactor, will in return give herself to you in a marvellous but
real manner. Indeed you may without hesitation say to her, "I am yours, O
Blessed Virgin, obtain salvation for me," or with the beloved disciple, St.
John, "I have taken you, Blessed Mother, for my all." Or again you may say with
St. Bonaventure, "Dear Mother of saving grace, I will do everything with
confidence and without fear because you are my strength and my boast in the
Lord," or in another place, "I am all yours and all that I have is yours, O
glorious Virgin, blessed above all created things. Let me place you as a seal
upon my heart, for your love is as strong as death." Or adopting the sentiments
of the prophet, "Lord, my heart has no reason to be exalted nor should my looks
be proud; I have not sought things of great moment nor wonders beyond my reach;
nevertheless, I am still not humble. But I have roused my soul and taken
courage. I am as a child, weaned from earthly pleasures and resting on its
mother's breast. It is upon this breast that all good things come to me" (Ps.
130:1-2).

4. What will still further increase your confidence in her
is that, after having given her in trust all that you possess to use or keep as
she pleases, you will place less trust in yourself and much more in her whom you
have made your treasury. How comforting and how consoling when a person can say,
"The treasury of God, where he has placed all that he holds most precious, is
also my treasury." "She is," says a saintly man, "the treasury of the
Lord."

5. Communication of the spirit
of Mary

217. The soul of Mary will be communicated to you to glorify
the Lord. Her spirit will take the place of yours to rejoice in God, her
Saviour, but only if you are faithful to the practices of this devotion. As St.
Ambrose says, "May the soul of Mary be in each one of us to glorify the Lord!
May the spirit of Mary be in each one of us to rejoice in God!" "When will that
happy day come," asks a saintly man of our own day whose life was completely
wrapped up in Mary, "when God's Mother is enthroned in men's hearts as Queen,
subjecting them to the dominion of her great and princely Son? When will souls
breathe Mary as the body breathes air?" When that time comes wonderful things
will happen on earth. The Holy Spirit, finding his dear Spouse present again in
souls, will come down into them with great power. He will fill them with his
gifts, especially wisdom, by which they will produce wonders of grace. My dear
friend, when will that happy time come, that age of Mary, when many souls,
chosen by Mary and given her by the most High God, will hide themselves
completely in the depths of her soul, becoming living copies of her, loving and
glorifying Jesus? That day will dawn only when the devotion I teach is
understood and put into practice. Ut adveniat regnum tuum, adveniat regnum
Mariae: "Lord, that your kingdom may come, may the reign of Mary
come!"

6. Transformation into the
likeness of Jesus

218. If Mary, the Tree of Life, is well cultivated in our
soul by fidelity to this devotion, she will in due time bring forth her fruit
which is none other than Jesus. I have seen many devout souls searching for
Jesus in one way or another, and so often when they have worked hard throughout
the night, all they can say is, "Despite our having worked all night, we have
caught nothing" (Lk. 5:5). To them we can say, "You have worked hard and gained
little (Hag. 1:6); Jesus can only be recognized faintly in you." But if we
follow the immaculate path of Mary, living the devotion that I teach, we will
always work in daylight, we will work in a holy place, and we will work but
little. There is no darkness in Mary, not even the slightest shadow since there
was never any sin in her. She is a holy place, a holy of holies, in which saints
are formed and moulded.

219. Please note that I say that saints are moulded in Mary.
There is a vast difference between carving a statue by blows of hammer and
chisel and making a statue by using a mould. Sculptors and statue-makers work
hard and need plenty of time to make statues by the first method. But the second
method does not involve much work and takes very little time. St. Augustine
speaking to our Blessed Lady says, "You are worthy to be called the mould of
God." Mary is a mould capable of forming people into the image of the God-man.
Anyone who is cast into this divine mould is quickly shaped and moulded into
Jesus and Jesus into him. At little cost and in a short time he will become
Christ-like since he is cast into the very same mould that fashioned a
God-man.

220. I think I can very well compare some spiritual
directors and devout persons to sculptors who wish to produce Jesus in
themselves and in others by methods other than this. Many of them rely on their
own skill, ingenuity and art and chip away endlessly with mallet and chisel at
hard stone or badly-prepared wood, in an effort to produce a likeness of our
Lord. At times, they do not manage to produce a recognizable likeness either
because they lack knowledge and experience of the person of Jesus or because a
clumsy stroke has spoiled the whole work. But those who accept this little known
secret of grace which I offer them can rightly be compared to smelters and
moulders who have discovered the beautiful mould of Mary where Jesus was so
divinely and so naturally formed. They do not rely on their own skill but on the
perfection of the mould. They cast and lose themselves in Mary where they become
true models of her Son.

221. You may think this a beautiful and convincing
comparison. But how many understand it? I would like you, my dear friend, to
understand it. But remember that only molten and liquefied substances may be
poured into a mould. That means that you must crush and melt down the old Adam
in you if you wish to acquire the likeness of the new Adam in
Mary.

7. The greater glory of
Christ

222. If you live this devotion sincerely, you will give more
glory to Jesus in a month than in many years of a more demanding devotion. Here
are my reasons for saying this:

1. Since you do everything through the Blessed Virgin as
required by this devotion, you naturally lay aside your own intentions no matter
how good they appear to you. You abandon yourself to our Lady's intentions even
though you do not know what they are. Thus you share in the high quality of her
intentions, which are so pure that she gave more glory to God by the smallest of
her actions, say, twirling her distaff, or making a stitch, than did St.
Laurence suffering his cruel martyrdom on the gridiron, and even more than all
the saints together in all their most heroic deeds! Mary amassed such a
multitude of merits and graces during her sojourn on earth that it would be
easier to count the stars in heaven, the drops of water in the ocean or the
sands of the sea-shore than count her merits and graces. She thus gave more
glory to God than all the angels and saints have given or will ever give him.
Mary, wonder of God, when souls abandon themselves to you, you cannot but work
wonders in them!

223. 2. In this devotion we set no store on our own thoughts
and actions but are content to rely on Mary's dispositions when approaching and
even speaking to Jesus. We then act with far greater humility than others who
imperceptibly rely on their own dispositions and are self-satisfied about them;
and consequently we give greater glory to God, for perfect glory is given to him
only by the lowly and humble of heart.

224. 3. Our Blessed Lady, in her immense love for us, is
eager to receive into her virginal hands the gift of our actions, imparting to
them a marvellous beauty and splendour, and presenting them herself to Jesus
most willingly. More glory is given to our Lord in this way than when we make
our offering with our own guilty hands.

225. 4. Lastly, you never think of Mary without Mary
thinking of God for you. You never praise or honour Mary without Mary joining
you in praising and honouring God. Mary is entirely relative to God. Indeed I
would say that she was relative only to God, because she exists uniquely in
reference to him.

She is an echo of God, speaking and repeating only God. If
you say "Mary" she says "God." When St. Elizabeth praised Mary calling her
blessed because she had believed, Mary, the faithful echo of God, responded with
her canticle, "My soul glorifies the Lord" (Lk. 1:46). What Mary did on that
day, she does every day. When we praise her, when we love and honour her, when
we present anything to her, then God is praised, honoured and loved and receives
our gift through Mary and in Mary.

Chapter 7. Particular practices
of this devotion

1. Exterior
practices

226. Although this devotion is essentially an interior one,
this does not prevent it from having exterior practices which should not be
neglected. "These must be done but those not omitted" (Lk. 11:42). If properly
performed, exterior acts help to foster interior ones. Man is always guided by
his senses and such practices remind him of what he has done or should do. Let
no worldling or critic intervene to assert that true devotion is essentially in
the heart and therefore externals should be avoided as inspiring vanity, or that
real devotion should be hidden and private. I answer in the words of our Lord,
"Let men see your good works that they may glorify your Father who is in heaven"
(Mt. 5:16). As St. Gregory says, this does not mean that they should perform
external actions to please men or seek praise; that certainly would be vanity.
It simply means that we do these things before men only to please and glorify
God without worrying about either the contempt or the approval of
men.

I shall briefly mention some practices which I call
exterior, not because they are performed without inner attention but because
they have an exterior element as distinct from those which are purely
interior.

1. Preparation and
consecration

227. Those who desire to take up this special devotion,
(which has not been erected into a confraternity, although this would be
desirable), should spend at least twelve days in emptying themselves of the
spirit of the world, which is opposed to the spirit of Jesus, as I have
recommended in the first part of this preparation for the reign of Jesus Christ.
They should then spend three weeks imbuing themselves with the spirit of Jesus
through the most Blessed Virgin. Here is a programme they might
follow:

228. During the first week they should offer up all their
prayers and acts of devotion to acquire knowledge of themselves and sorrow for
their sins.

Let them perform all their actions in a spirit of humility.
With this end in view they may, if they wish, meditate on what I have said
concerning our corrupted nature, and consider themselves during six days of the
week as nothing but sails, slugs, toads, swine, snakes and goats. Or else they
may meditate on the following three considerations of St. Bernard: "Remember
what you were - corrupted seed; what you are - a body destined for decay; what
you will be - food for worms."

They will ask our Lord and the Holy Spirit to enlighten them
saying, "Lord, that I may see," or "Lord, let me know myself," or "Come, Holy
Spirit." Every day they should say the Litany of the Holy Spirit, with the
prayer that follows, as indicated in the first part of this work. They will turn
to our Blessed Lady and beg her to obtain for them that great grace which is the
foundation of all others, the grace of self-knowledge. For this intention they
will say each day the Ave Maris Stella and the Litany of the Blessed
Virgin.

229. Each day of the second week they should endeavour in
all their prayers and works to acquire an understanding of the Blessed Virgin
and ask the Holy Spirit for this grace. They may read and meditate upon what we
have already said about her. They should recite daily the Litany of the Holy
Spirit and the Ave Maris Stella as during the first week. In addition they will
say at least five decades of the Rosary for greater understanding of
Mary.

230. During the third week they should seek to understand
Jesus Christ better. They may read and meditate on what we have already said
about him. They may say the prayer of St. Augustine which they will find at the
beginning of the second part of this book (67). Again with St. Augustine, they
may pray repeatedly, "Lord, that I may know you," or "Lord, that I may see" (Lk.
18:41). As during the previous week, they should recite the Litany of the Holy
Spirit and the Ave Maris Stella, adding every day the Litany of the Holy Name of
Jesus.

231. At the end of these three weeks they should go to
confession and Holy Communion with the intention of consecrating themselves to
Jesus through Mary as slaves of love. When receiving Holy Communion they could
follow the method given later on. They then recite the act of consecration which
is given at the end of this book. If they do not have a printed copy of the act,
they should write it out or have it copied and then sign it on the very day they
make it.

232. It would be very becoming if on that day they offered
some tribute to Jesus and his Mother, either as a penance for past
unfaithfulness to the promises made in baptism or as a sign of their submission
to the sovereignty of Jesus and Mary. Such a tribute would be in accordance with
each one's ability and fervour and may take the form of fasting, an act of
self-denial, the gift of an alms or the offering of a votive candle. If they
gave only a pin as a token of their homage, provided it were given with a good
heart, it would satisfy Jesus who considers only the good
intention.

233. Every year at least, on the same date, they should
renew the consecration following the same exercises for three weeks. They might
also renew it every month or even every day by saying this short prayer: "I am
all yours and all I have is yours, O dear Jesus, through Mary, your holy
Mother."

2. The Little Crown of the
Blessed Virgin

234. If it is not too inconvenient, they should recite every
day of their lives the Little Crown of the Blessed Virgin, which is composed of
three Our Fathers and twelve Hail Marys in honour of the twelve glorious
privileges of Mary. This prayer is very old and is based on Holy Scripture. St.
John saw in a vision a woman crowned with twelve stars, clothed with the sun and
standing upon the moon. According to biblical commentators, this woman is the
Blessed Virgin.

235. There are several ways of saying the Little Crown but
it would take too long to explain them here. The Holy Spirit will teach them to
those who live this devotion conscientiously. However, here is a simple way to
recite it. As an introduction say: "Virgin most holy, accept my praise; give me
strength to fight your foes," then say the Creed. Next, say the following
sequence of prayers three times: one Our Father, four Hail Marys and one Glory
be to the Father. In conclusion, say the prayer Sub tuum - "We fly to thy
patronage."

3. The wearing of little
chains

236. It is very praiseworthy and helpful for those who have
become slaves of Jesus in Mary to wear, in token of their slavery of love, a
little chain blessed with a special blessing.

It is perfectly true, these external tokens are not
essential and may very well be dispensed with by those who have made this
consecration. Nevertheless, I cannot help but give the warmest approval to those
who wear them. They show they have shaken off the shameful chains of the slavery
of the devil, in which original sin and perhaps actual sin had bound them, and
have willingly taken upon themselves the glorious slavery of Jesus Christ. Like
St. Paul, they glory in the chains they wear for Christ. For though these chains
are made only of iron they are far more glorious and precious than all the gold
ornaments worn by monarchs.

237. At one time, nothing was considered more contemptible
than the Cross. Now this sacred wood has become the most glorious symbol of the
Christian faith. Similarly, nothing was more ignoble in the sight of the
ancients, and even today nothing is more degrading among unbelievers than the
chains of Jesus Christ. But among Christians nothing is more glorious than these
chains, because by them Christians are liberated and kept free from the ignoble
shackles of sin and the devil. Thus set free, we are bound to Jesus and Mary not
by compulsion and force like galley-slaves, but by charity and love as children
are to their parents. "I shall draw them to me by chains of love" said God Most
High speaking through the prophet (Hos. 11:4). Consequently, these chains are as
strong as death, and in a way stronger than death, for those who wear them
faithfully till the end of their life. For though death destroys and corrupts
their body, it will not destroy the chains of their slavery, since these, being
of metal, will not easily corrupt. It may be that on the day of their
resurrection, that momentous day of final judgement, these chains, still
clinging to their bones, will contribute to their glorification and be
transformed into chains of light and splendour. Happy then, a thousand times
happy, are the illustrious slaves of Jesus in Mary who bear their chains even to
the grave.

238. Here are the reasons for
wearing these chains:

a) They remind a Christian of the promises of his baptism
and the perfect renewal of these commitments made in his consecration. They
remind him of his strict obligation to adhere faithfully to them. A man's
actions are prompted more frequently by his senses than by pure faith and so he
can easily forget his duties towards God if he has no external reminder of them.
These little chains are a wonderful aid in recalling the bonds of sin and the
slavery of the devil from which baptism has freed him. At the same time, they
remind him of the dependence on Jesus promised at baptism and ratified when by
consecration he renewed these promises. Why is it that so many Christians do not
think of their baptismal vows and behave with as much licence as unbelievers who
have promised nothing to God? One explanation is that they do not wear external
signs to remind them of these vows.

239. b) These chains prove they are not ashamed of being the
servants and slaves of Jesus and that they reject the deadly bondage of the
world, of sin and of the devil.

c) They are a guarantee and protection against enslavement
by sin and the devil. For we must of necessity choose to wear either the chains
of sin and damnation or the chains of love and salvation.

240. Dear friend, break the chains of sin and of sinners, of
the world and the worldly, of the devil and his satellites. "Cast their yoke of
death far from us" (Ps. 2:3). To use the words of the Holy Spirit (Sir.
6:25-26), let us put our feet into his glorious shackles and our neck into his
chains. Let us bow down our shoulders in submission to the yoke of Wisdom
incarnate, Jesus Christ, and let us not be upset by the burden of his chains.
Notice how before saying these words the Holy Spirit prepares us to accept his
serious advice, "Hearken, my son," he says, "receive a counsel of understanding
and do not spurn this counsel of mine" (Sir. 6:24).

241. Allow me here, my dear friend, to join the Holy Spirit
in giving you the same counsel, "These chains are the chains of salvation" (Sir.
6:31). As our Lord on the cross draws all men to himself, whether they will it
or not, he will draw sinners by the fetters of their sins and submit them like
galley-slaves and devils to his eternal anger and avenging justice. But he will
draw the just, especially in these latter days, by the chains of
love.

242. These loving slaves of Christ may wear their chains
around the neck, on their arms, round the waist or round the ankles. Fr. Vincent
Caraffa, seventh General of the Society of Jesus, who died in the odour of
sanctity in 1643, carried an iron band round his ankles as a symbol of his holy
servitude and he used to say that his greatest regret was that he could not drag
a chain around in public. Mother Agnes of Jesus, of whom we have already spoken,
wore a chain around her waist. Others have worn it round the neck, in atonement
for the pearl necklaces they wore in the world. Others have worn chains round
their arms to remind them, as they worked with their hands, that they are the
slaves of Jesus.

4. Honouring the mystery of the
Incarnation

243. Loving slaves of Jesus in Mary should hold in high
esteem devotion to Jesus, the Word of God, in the great mystery of the
Incarnation, March 25th, which is the mystery proper to this devotion, because
it was inspired by the Holy Spirit for the following
reasons:

a) That we might honour and imitate the wondrous dependence
which God the Son chose to have on Mary, for the glory of his Father and for the
redemption of man. This dependence is revealed especially in this mystery where
Jesus becomes a captive and slave in the womb of his Blessed Mother, depending
on her for everything.

b) That we might thank God for the incomparable graces he
has conferred upon Mary and especially that of choosing her to be his most
worthy Mother. This choice was made in the mystery of the Incarnation. These are
the two principal ends of the slavery of Jesus in Mary.

244. Please note that I usually say "slave of Jesus in
Mary," "slavery of Jesus in Mary." We might indeed say, as some have already
been saying, "slave of Mary," "slavery of Mary." But I think it preferable to
say, "slave of Jesus in Mary." This is the opinion of Fr. Tronson, Superior
General of the Seminary of St. Sulpice, a man renowned for his exceptional
prudence and remarkable holiness. He gave this advice when consulted upon this
subject by a priest.

Here are the reasons for
it:

245. a) Since we live in an age of pride when a great number
of haughty scholars, with proud and critical minds, find fault even with
long-established and sound devotions, it is better to speak of "slavery of Jesus
in Mary" and to call oneself "slave of Jesus" rather than "slave of Mary." We
then avoid giving any pretext for criticism. In this way, we name this devotion
after its ultimate end which is Jesus, rather than after the way and the means
to arrive there, which is Mary. However we can very well use either term without
any scruple, as I myself do. If a man goes from Orleans to Tours, by way of
Amboise, he can quite truthfully say that he is going to Amboise and equally
truthfully say that he is going to Tours. The only difference is that Amboise is
simply a place on the direct road to Tours, and Tours alone is his final
destination.

246. b) Since the principal mystery celebrated and honoured
in this devotion is the mystery of the Incarnation where we find Jesus only in
Mary, having become incarnate in her womb, it is more appropriate for us to say,
"slavery of Jesus in Mary," of Jesus dwelling and reigning in Mary, according to
the beautiful prayer, recited by so many great souls, "O Jesus, living in
Mary."

247. c) These expressions show more clearly the intimate
union existing between Jesus and Mary. So closely are they united that one is
wholly in the other. Jesus is all in Mary and Mary is all in Jesus. Or rather,
it is no longer she who lives, but Jesus alone who lives in her. It would be
easier to separate light from the sun than Mary from Jesus. So united are they
that our Lord may be called, "Jesus of Mary," and his Mother "Mary of
Jesus."

248. Time does not permit me to linger here and elaborate on
the perfections and wonders of the mystery of Jesus living and reigning in Mary,
or the Incarnation of the Word. I shall confine myself to the following brief
remarks. The Incarnation is the first mystery of Jesus Christ; it is the most
hidden; and it is the most exalted and the least known.

It was in this mystery that Jesus, in the womb of Mary and
with her co-operation, chose all the elect. For this reason the saints called
her womb the throne-room of God's mysteries.

It was in this mystery that Jesus anticipated all subsequent
mysteries of his life by his willing acceptance of them. Consequently, this
mystery is a summary of all his mysteries since it contains the intention and
the grace of them all.

Lastly, this mystery is the seat of the mercy, the
liberality, and the glory of God. It is the seat of his mercy for us, since we
can approach and speak to Jesus through Mary. We need her intervention to see or
speak to him. Here, ever responsive to the prayer of his Mother, Jesus
unfailingly grants grace and mercy to all poor sinners. "Let us come boldly
before the throne of grace" (Heb. 4:16).

It is the seat of liberality for Mary, because while the new
Adam dwelt in this truly earthly paradise God performed there so many hidden
marvels beyond the understanding of men and angels. For this reason, the saints
call Mary "the magnificence of God," as if God showed his magnificence only in
Mary.

It is the seat of glory for his Father, because it was in
Mary that Jesus perfectly atoned to his Father on behalf of mankind. It was here
that he perfectly restored the glory that sin had taken from his Father. It was
here again that our Lord, by the sacrifice of himself and of his will, gave more
glory to God than he would have given had he offered all the sacrifices of the
Old Law. Finally, in Mary he gave his Father infinite glory, such as his Father
had never received from man.

5. Saying the Hail Mary and the
Rosary

249. Those who accept this
devotion should have a great love for the Hail Mary, or, as it is called, the
Angelic Salutation.

Few Christians, however enlightened, understand the value,
merit, excellence and necessity of the Hail Mary. Our Blessed Lady herself had
to appear on several occasions to men of great holiness and insight, such as St.
Dominic, St. John Capistran and Blessed Alan de Rupe, to convince them of the
richness of this prayer.

They composed whole books on the wonders it had worked and
its efficacy in converting sinners. They earnestly proclaimed and publicly
preached that just as the salvation of the world began with the Hail Mary, so
the salvation of each individual is bound up with it. This prayer, they said,
brought to a dry and barren world the Fruit of Life, and if well said, will
cause the Word of God to take root in the soul and bring forth Jesus, the Fruit
of Life. They also tell us that the Hail Mary is a heavenly dew which waters the
earth of our soul and makes it bear its fruit in due season. The soul which is
not watered by this heavenly dew bears no fruit but only thorns and briars, and
merits only God's condemnation.

250. Here is what our Blessed Lady revealed to Blessed Alan
de Rupe as recorded in his book, The Dignity of the Rosary, and as told again by
Cartagena: "Know, my son, and make it known to all, that lukewarmness or
negligence in saying the Hail Mary, or a distaste for it, is a probable and
proximate sign of eternal damnation, for by this prayer the whole world was
restored."

These are terrible words but at the same time they are
consoling. We should find it hard to believe them, were we not assured of their
truth by Blessed Alan and by St. Dominic before him, and by so many great men
since his time. The experience of many centuries is there to prove it, for it
has always been common knowledge that those who bear the sign of reprobation, as
all formal heretics, evil-doers, the proud and the worldly, hate and spurn the
Hail Mary and the Rosary. True, heretics learn to say the Our Father but they
will not countenance the Hail Mary and the Rosary and they would rather carry a
snake around with them than a rosary. And there are even Catholics, who, sharing
the proud tendencies of their father Lucifer, despise the Hail Mary or look upon
it with indifference. The Rosary, they say, is a devotion suitable only for
ignorant and illiterate people.

On the other hand, we know from experience that those who
show positive signs of being among the elect, appreciate and love the Hail Mary
and are always glad to say it. The closer they are to God, the more they love
this prayer, as our Blessed Lady went on to tell Blessed
Alan.

251. I do not know how this should be, but it is perfectly
true; and I know no surer way of discovering whether a person belongs to God
than by finding out if he loves saying the Hail Mary and the Rosary. I say, "if
he loves," for it can happen that a person for some reason may be unable to say
the Rosary, but this does not prevent him from loving it and inspiring others to
say it.

252. Chosen souls, slaves of Jesus in Mary, understand that
after the Our Father, the Hail Mary is the most beautiful of all prayers. It is
the perfect compliment the most High God paid to Mary through his archangel in
order to win her heart. So powerful was the effect of this greeting upon her, on
account of its hidden delights, that despite her great humility, she gave her
consent to the incarnation of the Word. If you say the Hail Mary properly, this
compliment will infallibly earn you Mary's good will.

253. When the Hail Mary is well said, that is, with
attention, devotion and humility, it is, according to the saints, the enemy of
Satan, putting him to flight; it is the hammer that crushes him, a source of
holiness for souls, a joy to the angels and a sweet melody for the devout. It is
the Canticle of the New Testament, a delight for Mary and glory for the most
Blessed Trinity. The Hail Mary is dew falling from heaven to make the soul
fruitful. It is a pure kiss of love we give to Mary. It is a crimson rose, a
precious pearl that we offer to her. It is a cup of ambrosia, of divine nectar
that we offer her. These are comparisons made by the saints.

254. I earnestly beg of you, then, by the love I bear you in
Jesus and Mary, not to be content with saying the Little Crown of the Blessed
Virgin, but say the Rosary too, and if time permits, all its fifteen decades,
every day. Then when death draws near, you will bless the day and hour when you
took to heart what I told you, for having sown the blessings of Jesus and Mary,
you will reap the eternal blessings in heaven.

6. Praying the
Magnificat

255. To thank God for the graces he has given to our Lady,
her consecrated ones will frequently say the Magnificat, following the example
of Blessed Marie d'Oignies and several other saints. The Magnificat is the only
prayer we have which was composed by our Lady, or rather, composed by Jesus in
her, for it was he who spoke through her lips. It is the greatest offering of
praise that God ever received under the law of grace. On the one hand, it is the
most humble hymn of thanksgiving and, on the other, it is the most sublime and
exalted. Contained in it are mysteries so great and so hidden that even the
angels do not understand them.

Gerson, a pious and learned scholar, spent the greater part
of his life writing tracts full of erudition and love on the most profound
subjects. Even so, it was with apprehension that he undertook towards the end of
his life to write a commentary on the Magnificat which was the crowning point of
all his works. In a large volume on the subject he says many wonderful things
about this beautiful and divine canticle. Among other things he tells us that
Mary herself frequently recited it, especially at thanksgiving after Holy
Communion. The learned Benzonius, in his commentary on the Magnificat, cites
several miracles worked through the power of this prayer. The devils, he
declare, take to flight when they hear these words, "He puts forth his arm in
strength and scatters the proud-hearted" (Lk. 1:51).

7. Contempt of the
world

256. Mary's faithful servants despise this corrupted world.
They should hate and shun its allurements, and follow the exercises of the
contempt of the world which we have given in the first part of this
treatise.

2. Special interior practices
for those who wish to be perfect

257. The exterior practices of this devotion which I have
just dealt with should be observed as far as one's circumstances and state of
life permit. They should not be omitted through negligence or deliberate
disregard. In addition to them, here are some very sanctifying interior
practices for those souls who feel called by the Holy Spirit to a high degree of
perfection. They may be expressed in four words, doing everything THROUGH MARY,
WITH MARY, IN MARY, and FOR MARY, in order to do it more perfectly through
Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus, and for Jesus.

1. Through
Mary

258. We must do everything through Mary, that is, we must
obey her always and be led in all things by her spirit, which is the Holy Spirit
of God. "Those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God" (Rom.
8:14), says St. Paul. Those who are led by the spirit of Mary are children of
Mary, and, consequently children of God, as we have already shown. Among the
many servants of Mary only those who are truly and faithfully devoted to her are
led by her spirit. I have said that the spirit of Mary is the spirit of God
because she was never led by her own spirit,, but always by the spirit of God,
who made himself master of her to such an extent that he became her very spirit.
That is why St. Ambrose says, "May the soul of Mary be in each one of us to
glorify the Lord. May the spirit of Mary be in each one of us to rejoice in
God." Happy is the man who follows the example of the good Jesuit Brother
Rodriguez, who died in the odour of sanctity, because he will be completely
possessed and governed by the spirit of Mary, a spirit which is gentle yet
strong, zealous yet prudent, humble yet courageous, pure yet
fruitful.

259. The person who wishes to be
led by this spirit of Mary:

1. Should renounce his own spirit, his own views and his own
will before doing anything, for example, before making meditation, celebrating
or attending Mass, before Communion. For the darkness of our own spirit and the
evil tendencies of our own will and actions, good as they may seem to us, would
hinder the holy spirit of Mary were we to follow them.

2. We should give ourselves up to the spirit of Mary to be
moved and directed as she wishes. We should place and leave ourselves in her
virginal hands, like a tool in the hands of a craftsman or a lute in the hands
of a good musician. We should cast ourselves into her like a stone thrown into
the sea. This is done easily and quickly by a mere thought, a slight movement of
the will or just a few words as - "I renounce myself and give myself to you, my
dear Mother." And even if we do not experience any emotional fervour in this
spiritual encounter, it is none the less real. It is just as if a person with
equal sincerity were to say - which God forbid! - "I give myself to the devil."
Even though this were said without feeling any emotion, he would no less really
belong to the devil.

3. From time to time during an action and after it, we
should renew this same act of offering and of union. The more we do so, the
quicker we shall grow in holiness and the sooner we shall reach union with
Christ, which necessarily follows upon union with Mary, since the spirit of Mary
is the spirit of Jesus.

2. With Mary

260. We must do everything with Mary, that is to say, in all
our actions we must look upon Mary, although a simple human being, as the
perfect model of every virtue and perfection, fashioned by the Holy Spirit for
us to imitate, as far as our limited capacity allows. In every action then we
should consider how Mary performed it or how she would perform it if she were in
our place. For this reason, we must examine and meditate on the great virtues
she practised during her life, especially:

1. Her lively faith, by which
she believed the angel's word without the least hesitation, and believed
faithfully and constantly even to the foot of the Cross on
Calvary.

2. Her deep humility, which made
her prefer seclusion, maintain silence, submit to every eventuality and put
herself in the last place.

3. Her truly divine purity,
which never had and never will have its equal on this side of
heaven.

And so on for her other
virtues.

Remember what I told you before, that Mary is the great,
unique mould of God, designed to make living images of God at little expense and
in a short time. Anyone who finds this mould and casts himself into it, is soon
transformed into our Lord because it is the true likeness of
him.

3. In Mary

261. We must do everything in Mary. To understand this we
must realize that the Blessed Virgin is the true earthly paradise of the new
Adam and that the ancient paradise was only a symbol of her. There are in this
earthly paradise untold riches, beauties, rarities and delights, which the new
Adam, Jesus Christ, has left there. It is in this paradise that he "took his
delights" for nine months, worked his wonders and displayed his riches with the
magnificence of God himself. This most holy place consists of only virgin and
immaculate soil from which the new Adam was formed with neither spot nor stain
by the operation of the Holy Spirit who dwells there. In this earthly paradise
grows the real Tree of Life which bore our Lord, the fruit of Life, the tree of
knowledge of good and evil, which bore the Light of the
world.

In this divine place there are trees planted by the hand of
God and watered by his divine unction which have borne and continue to bear
fruit that is pleasing to him. There are flowerbeds studded with a variety of
beautiful flowers of virtue, diffusing a fragrance which delights even the
angels. Here, there are meadows verdant with hope, impregnable towers of
fortitude, enchanting mansions of confidence and many other
delights.

Only the Holy Spirit can teach us the truths that these
material objects symbolize. In this place the air is perfectly pure. There is no
night, but only the brilliant day of the sacred humanity, the resplendent,
spotless sun of the Divinity, the blazing furnace of love, melting all the base
metal thrown into it and changing it into gold. There the river of humility
gushes forth from the soil, divides into four branches and irrigates the whole
of this enchanted place. These branches are the four cardinal
virtues.

262. The Holy Spirit speaking through the Fathers of the
Church, also calls our Lady the Eastern Gate, through which the High Priest,
Jesus Christ, enters and goes out into the world. Through this gate he entered
the world the first time and through this same gate he will come the second
time.

The Holy Spirit also calls her the Sanctuary of the
Divinity, the Resting-place of the Holy Trinity, the Throne of God, the City of
God, the Altar of God, the Temple of God, the World of God. All these titles and
expressions of praise are very real when related to the different wonders the
Almighty worked in her and the graces which he bestowed on her. What wealth and
what glory! What a joy and a privilege for us to enter and dwell in Mary, in
whom almighty God has set up the throne of his supreme
glory!

263. But how difficult it is for us to have the freedom, the
ability and the light to enter such an exalted and holy place. This place is
guarded not by a cherub, like the first earthly paradise but by the Holy Spirit
himself who has become its absolute Master. Referring to her, he says: "You are
an enclosed garden, my sister, my bride, an enclosed garden and a sealed
fountain" (Song 4:12). Mary is enclosed. Mary is sealed. The unfortunate
children of Adam and Eve, driven from the earthly paradise, can enter this new
paradise only by a special grace of the Holy Spirit which they have to
merit.

264. When we have obtained this remarkable grace by our
fidelity, we should be delighted to remain in Mary. We should rest there
peacefully, rely on her confidently, hide ourselves there with safety, and
abandon ourselves unconditionally to her, so that within her virginal
bosom:

1. We may be nourished with the
milk of her grace and her motherly compassion.

2. We may be delivered from all
anxiety, fear and scruples.

3. We may be safeguarded from all our enemies, the devil,
the world and sin which have never gained admittance there. That is why our Lady
says that those who work in her will not sin (Sir. 24:30), that is, those who
dwell spiritually in our Lady will never commit serious sin.

4. We may be formed in our Lord and our Lord formed in us,
because her womb is, as the early Fathers call it, the house of the divine
secrets where Jesus and all the elect have been conceived. "This one and that
one were born in her" (Ps. 86:5).

4. For Mary

265. Finally we must do everything for Mary. Since we have
given ourselves completely to her service, it is only right that we should do
everything for her as if we were her personal servant and slave. This does not
mean that we take her for the ultimate end of our service for Jesus alone is our
ultimate end. But we take Mary for our proximate end, our mysterious
intermediary and the easiest way of reaching him.

Like every good servant and slave we must not remain idle,
but, relying on her protection, we should undertake and carry out great things
for our noble Queen. We must defend her privileges when they are questioned and
uphold her good name when it is under attack. We must attract everyone, if
possible, to her service and to this true and sound devotion. We must speak up
and denounce those who distort devotion to her by outraging her Son, and at the
same time we must apply ourselves to spreading this true devotion. As a reward
for these little services, we should expect nothing in return save the honour of
belonging to such a lovable Queen and the joy of being united through her to
Jesus, her Son, by a bond that is indissoluble in time and in
eternity.

GLORY TO JESUS IN
MARY!

GLORY TO MARY IN
JESUS!

GLORY TO GOD
ALONE!

SUPPLEMENT. THIS DEVOTION AT
HOLY COMMUNION

1. Before Holy
Communion

266. 1. Place yourself humbly in
the presence of God.

2. Renounce your corrupt nature
and dispositions, no matter how good self-love makes them appear to
you.

3. Renew your consecration
saying, "I belong entirely to you, dear Mother, and all that I have is
yours."

4. Implore Mary to lend you her heart so that you may
receive her Son with her dispositions. Remind her that her Son's glory requires
that he should not come into a heart so sullied and fickle as your own, which
could not fail to diminish his glory and might cause him to leave. Tell her that
if she will take up her abode in you to receive her Son - which she can do
because of the sovereignty she has over all hearts - he will be received by her
in a perfect manner without danger of being affronted or being forced to depart.
"God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved" (Ps.
45:6).

Tell her with confidence that all you have given her of your
possessions is little enough to honour her, but that in Holy Communion you wish
to give her the same gifts as the eternal Father gave her. Thus, she will feel
more honoured than if you gave her all the wealth in the world. Tell her,
finally, that Jesus, whose love for her is unique, still wishes to take his
delight and his repose in her even in your soul, even though it is poorer and
less clean than the stable which he readily entered because she was there. Beg
her to lend you her heart, saying, "O Mary, I take you for my all; give me your
heart."

2. During Holy
Communion

267. After the Our Father, when you are about to receive our
Lord, say to him three times the prayer, "Lord, I am not worthy." Say it the
first time as if you were telling the eternal Father that because of your evil
thoughts and your ingratitude to such a good Father, you are unworthy to receive
his only-begotten Son, but that here is Mary, his handmaid, who acts for you and
whose presence gives you a special confidence and hope in
him.

268. Say to God the Son, "Lord, I am not worthy," meaning
that you are not worthy to receive him because of your useless and evil words
and your carelessness in his service, but nevertheless you ask him to have pity
on you because you are going to usher him into the house of his Mother and
yours, and you will not let him go until he has made it his home. Implore him to
rise and come to the place of his repose and the ark of his sanctification. Tell
him that you have no faith in your own merits, strength and preparedness, like
Esau, but only in Mary, your Mother, just as Jacob had trust in Rebecca his
mother. Tell him that although you are a great sinner you still presume to
approach him, supported by his holy Mother and adorned with her merits and
virtues.

269. Say to the Holy Spirit, "Lord, I am not worthy." Tell
him that you are not worthy to receive the masterpiece of his love because of
your lukewarmness, wickedness and resistance to his inspirations. But,
nonetheless, you put all your confidence in Mary, his faithful Spouse, and say
with St. Bernard, "She is my greatest safeguard, the whole foundation of my
hope." Beg him to overshadow Mary, his inseparable Spouse, once again. Her womb
is as pure and her heart is as ardent as ever. Tell him that if he does not
enter your soul neither Jesus nor Mary will be formed there nor will it be a
worthy dwelling for them.

3. After Holy
Communion

270. After Holy Communion, close your eyes and recollect
yourself. Then usher Jesus into the heart of Mary: you are giving him to his
Mother who will receive him with great love and give him the place of honour,
adore him profoundly, show him perfect love, embrace him intimately in spirit
and in truth, and perform many offices for him of which we, in our ignorance,
would know nothing.

271. Or, maintain a profoundly humble heart in the presence
of Jesus dwelling in Mary. Or be in attendance like a slave at the gate of the
royal palace, where the King is speaking with the Queen. While they are talking
to each other, with no need of you, go in spirit to heaven and to the whole
world, and call upon all creatures to thank, adore and love Jesus and Mary for
you. "Come, let us adore."

272. Or, ask Jesus living in Mary that his kingdom may come
upon earth through his holy Mother. Ask for divine Wisdom, divine love, the
forgiveness of your sins, or any other grace, but always through Mary and in
Mary. Cast a look of reproach upon yourself and say, "Lord, do not look at my
sins, let your eyes see nothing in me but the virtues and merits of Mary."
Remembering your sins, you may add, "I am my own worst enemy and I am guilty of
all these sins." Or, "Deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man." Or again,
"Dear Jesus, you must increase in my soul and I must decrease." "Mary, you must
increase in me and I must always go on decreasing." "O Jesus and Mary, increase
in me and increase in others around me."

273. There are innumerable other thoughts with which the
Holy Spirit will inspire you, which he will make yours if you are thoroughly
recollected and mortified, and constantly faithful to the great and sublime
devotion which I have been teaching you. But remember the more you let Mary act
in your Communion the more Jesus will be glorified. The more you humble yourself
and listen to Jesus and Mary in peace and silence - with no desire to see, taste
or feel - then the more freedom you will give to Mary to act in Jesus' name and
the more Jesus will act in Mary. For the just man lives everywhere by faith
(Rom. 1:17), but especially in Holy Communion, which is an action of
faith.

(Consecration (The Love of
Eternal Wisdom, 223-227)

Consecration of oneself to Jesus
Christ, Wisdom incarnate, through the hands of Mary

223. Eternal and incarnate Wisdom, most lovable and adorable
Jesus, true God and true man, only Son of the eternal Father and of Mary always
Virgin, I adore you profoundly, dwelling in the splendour of your Father from
all eternity and in the virginal womb of Mary, your most worthy Mother, at the
time of your Incarnation.

I thank you for having emptied yourself in assuming the
condition of a slave to set me free from the cruel slavery of the evil
one.

I praise and glorify you for having willingly chosen to obey
Mary, your holy Mother, in all things, so that through her I may be your
faithful slave of love.

But I must confess that I have not kept the vows and
promises which I made to you so solemnly at my baptism. I have not fulfilled my
obligations, and I do not deserve to be called your child or even your
slave.

Since I cannot lay claim to anything except what merits your
rejection and displeasure, I dare no longer approach the holiness of your
majesty on my own. That is why I turn to the intercession and the mercy of your
holy Mother, whom you yourself have given me to mediate with you. Through her I
hope to obtain from you contrition and pardon for my sins, and that Wisdom whom
I desire to dwell in me always.

224. I turn to you, then, Mary immaculate, living tabernacle
of God, in whom eternal Wisdom willed to receive the adoration of both men and
angels.

I greet you as Queen of heaven and earth, for all that is
under God has been made subject to your sovereignty.

I call upon you, the unfailing refuge of sinners, confident
in your mercy that has never forsaken anyone.

Grant my desire for divine Wisdom and, in support of my
petition, accept the promises and the offering of myself which I now make,
conscious of my unworthiness.

225. I, an unfaithful sinner, renew and ratify today through
you my baptismal promises. I renounce for ever Satan, his empty promises, and
his evil designs, and I give myself completely to Jesus Christ, the incarnate
Wisdom, to carry my cross after him for the rest of my life, and to be more
faithful to him than I have been till now.

This day, with the whole court of heaven as witness, I
choose you, Mary, as my Mother and Queen. I surrender and consecrate myself to
you, body and soul, with all that I possess, both spiritual and material, even
including the value of all my good actions, past, present, and to come. I give
you the full right to dispose of me and all that belongs to me, without any
reservations, in whatever way you please, for the greater glory of God in time
and throughout eternity.

226. Accept, gracious Virgin, this little offering of my
slavery to honour and imitate the obedience which eternal Wisdom willingly chose
to have towards you, his Mother. I wish to acknowledge the authority which both
of you have over this little worm and pitiful sinner. By it I wish also to thank
God for the privileges bestowed on you by the Blessed Trinity. I declare that
for the future I will try to honour and obey you in all things as your true
slave of love.

O admirable Mother, present me to your dear Son as his slave
now and for always, so that he who redeemed me through you, will now receive me
through you.

227. Mother of mercy, grant me the favour of obtaining the
true Wisdom of God, and so make me one of those whom you love, teach and guide,
whom you nourish and protect as your children and slaves.

Virgin most faithful, make me in everything so committed a
disciple, imitator, and slave of Jesus, your Son, incarnate Wisdom, that I may
become, through your intercession and example, fully mature with the fullness
which Jesus possessed on earth, and with the fullness of his glory in heaven.
Amen.)

Most gracious Lord
Jesus Christ, you who are the fullness of love, neither honor, money nor any
earthly wealth, nor even goodness, nor any skill or knowledge can fill the heart
and satisfy the craving of our conscience, but only a true and pure love for
you.

For love is either accompanied by grace or without it; but
without grace it cannot be true love. Now, the only thing which can
restore and calm our souls on their journey is grace; similarly, love containing
this is true love. And because the man who love you, Lord, possesses you,
as it is written: "If we love one another, God dwells in us", he cannot be poor,
because he possesses God whom he loves. Indeed how can he be poor who
possess you in his inmost understanding, for you are every blessing. The
man who has gold in a safe is not rich, but he who has you in his heart is
rich. This is why it is written of you: "In me are riches and glory, so
that I may enrich all who love me and fill up their treasure
store."

O most merciful Lord Jesus Christ, richest in love: he who
wants to be enriched and satisfied must have true love, which restores and
perfects the heart, and satisfies it. For the man who is without true
love, even if he had all the world's riches and in addition wisdom, courage,
simplicity, loveliness, in short all the virtues listed by the philosophers,
nevertheless he would be poor and wretched because, not content with them, he
would always be seeking other things.

So it is written about one who loved earthly things: "You
say, 'I am rich and wealthy, and lack nothing', and you do not know that you are
wretched and pitiable, destitute, naked and blind. I advise you, buy gold
tried in the fire, that you may become wealthy."

O kindest Lord Jesus Christ, consuming love, what a
wonderful lesson you have shown us sinners for our salvation in warning us to
buy tried gold, by which is understood wholehearted love: for as gold surpasses
all other metals, so does love surpass all other virtues.

However, this gold must have been tried in the fire of your
love and made to burn through and through by this love of yours. It cannot
be bought for any money, but by a good will, good desire, good
disposition. Thus nothing can be bought that is better than this love and
nothing is more precious than this when it is gained.

O most gentle Lord Jesus Christ, rich in love, I am wretched
and pitiable, destitute, naked and blind; give me this tried gold, that is love
of you, so that my heart may be set on fire with it, that it may be restored and
clamed in you, and I myself, enriched by your grace and love, may reach love's
eternal kingdom.